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I have a dual-boot system with Ubuntu and Windows OS. Additionally, I have a second hard drive connected (/dev/sdb), with an NTFS partition and just data on it (no operating system). My GRUB boot menu shows one entry for Ubuntu and, for some unknown reason, two entries for Windows (one on /dev/sda1 and one on /dev/sda2). I have always booted Windows by the /dev/sda1 entry but this time accidentally chose /dev/sda2 entry. During that Windows boot chkdsk wanted to check my hard drive(s) for some inconsistency and said it successfully fixed some problems. Unfortunately, it apparently erased all data on my NTFS data drive /dev/sdb without noticed prior warning. All my data on that drive has been erased and the only files/directories left on that drive are:

  • bootsqm.dat
  • pagefile.sys
  • System Volume Information
  • $RECYCLE.BIN
  • found.000 (empty)

Does anybody maybe have an idea how to recover my data? Do I need to repair some partition table maybe? I have tried a few recovery programs already such as Recuva on Windows or Photorec on Linux. Unfortunately, they just list a bunch of files (>2.5 Mio.) without associated file path. Is there any better solution that also recovers the directory structure? Would very much appreciate help to recover my precious data :-(

Thanks a lot!

ThomasF
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  • What version of windows is this? – jdwolf Nov 25 '17 at 15:22
  • Also don't boot windows unless that drive is disconnected for now. If its still writing to pagefile that thats limiting your ability to even do a photorec recovery. – jdwolf Nov 25 '17 at 15:23
  • It's Windows 7 installed on /dev/sda. So I don't think it should destroy files on /dev/sdb but I am anyway running Ubuntu (also on /dev/sda). Thanks for the reference to the other problem but I am afraid it's a different issue. GRUB is still working fine and GParted doesn't show any other partition on /dev/sdb - just one NTFS partition with the few files posted above. – ThomasF Nov 25 '17 at 17:03
  • “how to recover my data?” On the Windows side or the Linux side? Those are two separate issues... – Andrea Lazzarotto Nov 26 '17 at 14:15
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    I can boot into Ubuntu or Windows, so any suggestion is appreciated. The lost files are on an external drive (no OS installed on that drive). GParted just shows an empty NTFS partition - there is no unallocated space or such as reported by others. The OS does not report any problem either during boot / mount. On Windows, I have already tried the program Recuva. It finds a lot of files. The problem is it can't recover the path where the files used to be. So I have 2.5 million files in one directory. Photorecon Ubuntu seems to be similar. Any idea how I can recover the directory tree too? – ThomasF Nov 26 '17 at 17:53

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