Hi Guys,

I really need some help here.

I was installing Ubuntu 11.04 supposedly on a Desktop but I had my external hard disk connected via USB.

This external hard disk had two NTFS partitions with lots of important personal and my works.

I accidentally installed Ubuntu upon it and I believe I had created new Linux partition for the Ubuntu installation.

Is there any way to undo everything?

Thanks.. It's quite frustrating doing stupid mistakes like this....

.. I have been kicking myself 'you know where' a few times already ....

you could try testdisk and photorec (booted from a livecd), but if you have overwritten the data you may be out of luck

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I am using a notebook running Ubuntu 11.04 and if I attach the External hard disk can I still run testdisk or photorec?

Yes testdisk at least works fine on external disks - I haven't tested photorec on externals, but have no reason to doubt it will work.
The suggestion to use a liveCD isn't necessary in this case - just install testdisk on your (laptop) Ubuntu system. Much faster than the liveCD - which is a better option in most recovery cases.

You may be lucky in that the second partition, and all it's data, is recoverable. Depends on how much got over-written, but there is hope.

1 members found this post helpful.

I have tried a few times but I am still abit worried on being able to recover the files.

Is there any possibilities on uninstalling the Ubuntu 11.04 and revert back to the old NTFS Partitions?

None at all.
The data at (presumably) the beginning of the first partition has been overwritten - several Gig of it (at least) in a normal install. The previous data is gone - unless you happen to know somebody in the NSA ...

Yeah ... I do .. Alec Baldwin.... but he was shot by Bruce Willis and fell of the helipad in Mercury Rising....

Ok... I will try testdisk again and see if I can recover anything from the external harddisk..