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I had windows 8.1 installed with ubuntu 14.04.3 on another partition. I booted from a USB and ran the installation with ubuntu 14.04.1. When doing the installation it detected that I already had 14.04.3 installed and it asked me whether I would like to replace that with 14.04.1. I said yes and ran the installation thinking it would just clean and downgrade my ubuntu version.

When I restart it no longer boots into UEFI menu (which I have selected) and when I press F12 and try and run windows boot loader it still boots into ubuntu. Did I delete my windows partition? I unfortunately didn't back it up. If I did delete it, is there anyway to recover it?

Thanks

wprins
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  • In Thunar (XFCE file manager), there's a list of unmounted partitions on bottom of window side pane - same probably applies to Nautilus file manager. Check for Windows partitions there. As for how to boot into Windows, check the answer bellow. – gogeccc Jun 03 '16 at 20:03
  • When I look under the size of my device it says the total capacity is 967 GB is the Filesystem type is ext3/ext4. Because my harddrive is 1TB this to me seems as if the windows partition has been overwritten and added to this ubuntu partition. – wprins Jun 07 '16 at 13:38
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    STOP using system. Use is overwriting more data. Ubuntu is not large and is scattered thruout entire 1TB. Most of Windows was at start, so you can recover some data. You can use Photorec or many also suggest Windows tools. https://askubuntu.com/questions/286181/how-do-i-recover-my-accidentally-lost-windows-partitions-after-installing-ubuntu Some Windows suggestions: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2247461 – oldfred Jun 08 '16 at 14:06
  • yeah, I had some luck too... recovered most of the data when I made such mistake once. I used this software. – gogeccc Jun 08 '16 at 14:48
  • wow this is really helpful. I'm going to try immediately. Unfortunately I downloaded the entirety of wikipedia yesterday (12GB) but I'll give it a shot – wprins Jun 08 '16 at 14:56

2 Answers2

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No, your Windows partition is still there. There is a glitch in Ubuntu that happens sometimes and it occurs after Ubuntu install, for some reason it does not send you to the grub menu to decide if you want to boot Ubuntu or Windows.

Here's the fix for this problem:

Shut down your computer. (If it's already on, if it is off, just go ahead and turn on your computer).

Turn on your computer.

Next, hold the shift key at boot.

Then, you will see the grub menu. Windows should be one of the options on the grub menu. Select Windows, and then you are good to go. Screenshot:enter image description here

  • Shift actually doesn't boot into grub for me. This might be an issue with me owning a Dell inspirion 15, but F2 goes into setup and F12 boot setup. Where I select the "windows boot loader" there it leads straight into ubuntu – wprins Jun 07 '16 at 13:39
  • It must be a problem with the boot loader. –  Jun 07 '16 at 17:04
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When I look under the size of my device it says the total capacity is 967 GB is the Filesystem type is ext3/ext4. Because my harddrive is 1TB this to me seems as if the windows partition has been overwritten and added to this ubuntu partition.

Oops, that seems as if Windows partition was indeed overwritten. Check partition layout in gparted or gnome-disks prior to making any final conclusions.

And as a rule of thumb, NEVER trust ANY installer with your data. Make partition layout using partitioning program from live disk (gparted works perfectly for me and comes with most Ubuntu distributions) and install operating system(s) on their designated partitions.

gogeccc
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    In addition to not trusting installers, always use the newer versions not some old version with a major bug. Reinstall says overwrite Ubuntu but it also erases existing Windows or any other partitions. Fixed in current versions. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1265192 – oldfred Jun 08 '16 at 14:01
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    Checked gparted and looks like I'm shit out of luck. I have 3 partitions. A fa32 (I think the USB I installed the image with) an ext4 where the linux is located, its 915 GB, and then a linux swap which is 16GB. I installed 14.04.1 so I could get access to 3.13 kernel. I'm trying to install NVIDIA drivers and its an absolute mess in ubuntu – wprins Jun 08 '16 at 14:11
  • try partition recovery software. Take a look at comments to the question – gogeccc Jun 08 '16 at 14:48