recover files from ext4 file system overwritten by new installation
 

This is one of the most stupidest things I have done in the recent past.

My main hard disk died and I replaced it. After installing windows in a small partition in /dev/sda, I thought I will try linux mint and went for it. (I need windows to play AOE, but ubuntu is my primary OS)

I didnt see the options properly or some distraction, I choose the "install alongside windows" option probably expecting it to install it in the unallocated partition next to the windows installation. I had completely forgotten my second internal drive /dev/sdb which has the backup data. Linux mint went and installed itself on that drive.

Is there a way to recover individual files from the second harddrive. Now if I boot or open it through live cd, all I see in the linux mint file systems. I want to aleast recover my CV/resume from the second drive. The second drive is a single ext4 file system

The old drive is completely dead, it doesnt even get recognized when I attach it to SATA.

I tried to search but couldnt find any solutions as I feel my stupidity is unique. Any help much appreciated.

Thanks

Umapathy

Don't boot into Mint. The files that are already overwritten will be unrecoverable, but there is a chance to recover those files that are currently not overwritten. Booting into Mint will lower the chance to recover intact files. Get yourself a copy of a live-disc that has the testdisk-package installen, like grml or RIP-Linux. Use the photorec-program (which is part of the testdisk-package) to scan the disk and recover the files.
Get ready to become a large amount of files without proper names, you will have to sort them out manually after the recovery.