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Apparently Ubuntu overwrote both OSs on my dual partition?

My computer dual booted Windows 7 and Windows 8. I decided to install Ubuntu and since I wasn't using Windows 8, figured I'd reuse the partition I'd made for it. So (in Windows 7) I formatted the Windows 8 drive.

So when I start up the Ubuntu install, it tells me its found a Windows 8 install and asks what I want to do. I figure it found some residual boot instructions or something, and since I want to replace it, I tell it to erase that information.

Now my computer boots straight into Ubuntu, and I can't seem to find any trace of my old Windows 7 install. (Though I'm really inexperienced with Linux and maybe it's there somewhere.) However I have a suspiciously large amount of space on this partition...

It's not the end of the world if I deleted everything, I just lost some game saves and some photos, but it'd be nice to know if anything's retrievable.

And if everything IS gone - if someone could point out a way to merge my partitions, since I'm apparently single booting now, that'd be nice too.

The first step to find out what is still on the computer is to open a terminal in Ubuntu and type: sudo fdisk -l(Lower case Letter L in the command). In the output in the far right column 'System' look to see if you have HPFS/NTFS on any partition. If you do, you still have some type of windows partition.

Doesn't look like it.

...Whoops!

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders, total 1250263728 sectors

Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x00055fa1



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System

/dev/sda1  *        2048      499711      248832  83  Linux

/dev/sda2          501758  1250263039  624880641    5  Extended

/dev/sda5          501760  1250263039  624880640  8e  Linux LVM



Disk /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root: 635.6 GB, 635579662336 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77271 cylinders, total 1241366528 sectors

Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x00000000



Disk /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root doesn't contain a valid partition table



Disk /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-swap_1: 4294 MB, 4294967296 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 522 cylinders, total 8388608 sectors

Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x00000000



Disk /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-swap_1 doesn't contain a valid partition table



Disk /dev/sdb: 4010 MB, 4010803200 bytes

128 heads, 54 sectors/track, 1133 cylinders, total 7833600 sectors

Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0xc3072e18



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System

/dev/sdb1  *        3192    7833599    3915204    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

You are using the entire disk for Ubuntu - no merging to be done. I'm surprised that used LVM, but I haven't installed it in a while.

So here's what happened.
You had Win7 - when you installed Win8 it updated the Win7 bootcode in the Win7 partition - so while it looked like (and was) the Win8 bootloder, the code actually exited in the Win7 partition.
The Ubuntu installer sees that Win8 boot code and (wrongly) suggests to you it's a Win8 installation. Which you say to delete ... :doh:

Ubuntu then uses the entire (now empty) disk. Not your fault BTW, just another lame installer.

Recovering Photos

Open Synaptic Package Manager and install testdisk.
Then open terminal.
$sudo photorec
photorec is opened.You can recover Documents,Spreadsheets,audio/video files.photos etc.
Choose only one type of file at a time ,so that home folder does not get full.
please refer my blog
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-joshi-698489/

Quote:

Originally Posted by kishor joshi (Post 5132605)

Open Synaptic Package Manager and install testdisk.
Then open terminal.
$sudo photorec

You really do not want to be doing that from your current installation. Any writing to that disk greatly decreases your chances of recovering old files. You need to boot from alternative media and save any recovered files to an external disk drive or USB flash drive. My personal favorite is SystemRescueCD, which includes both testdisk and photorec in its set of tools.

Not helpful at this point, but maybe as a hint for the future: Do not rely on guided partitioning in any installer.
Do it manually, and make sure you are erasing the right partitions.
I typically set up the partitioning before even starting any installer from within gparted upfront in a live system. That way you can avoid these kinds of situations...