`Hi Community,

feel free to laugh about me. I do myself. So it is the tzpical don`t do sth if zou don`t know what you are doing. Initially I had an upgrade of win 10 on my notebook. from there installed later linux mint. So I thought don`t need WIn10 next my Linux Mint, from Linux formated two small partitions /92Gb and 5 Gb/, after that no Grub can`t boot. So to get to computer at all I reinstalled Win 10. then created LiveUsb with Linux Mint again and booted, but there is no Trace at all of mz old Linux or any of my Old Data/yes I didn`t backed them up all/ and I don`t see/access anywhere the big partition of 592 Gb/not from Linux not from Windows../ Obviously I wasn`t really consiouss where I was installing linux Mint in the first place.. is it please maybe visible from the fdisk list what is my situation now ? Is it maybe worth it of trying some recovery data program ? I would need the most all my bureaucracy paper stuff... Thousand thanks for any answer... Hopefully I finally learned a lesson )

mint@mint ~ $ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/loop0: 1.5 GiB, 1618886656 bytes, 3161888 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 /dev/sda: 596.2 GiB, 640135028736 bytes, 1250263728 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xfcde389c

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 2048 37750783 37748736 18G 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sda2 * 37750784 37955583 204800 100M 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 37955584 217395199 179439616 85.6G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4 217397246 1250256895 1032859650 492.5G f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 1062668288 1250256895 187588608 89.5G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary.




Disk /dev/sdb: 3.8 GiB, 4009754624 bytes, 7831552 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
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x001ba0a1

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 7831551 7829504 3.8G c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Long time since I had MS Windows on a computer, but it usually takes over all the drive, unless you tell it not to. When you re installed it, it over wrote your whole disk, erasing everything that was on it.

Welcome to LinuxQuestions

How much effort and time are you willing to put in to recovery your files? There is no way to determine how much of your data was overwritten and lost when you reinstalled Windows. While formatting does not actually erase data it is difficult to recover because there is no way to know exactly where it exists on the disk.

testdisk and photorec are good data recovery tools but probably not easy to use for the inexperienced. In the long run it is probably not not worth the time.

You can try 'foremost' from a live CD/DVD like Knoppix. You'll have to tweak the config file a bit, probably, to recover all the different types of files you want.

There is a big unallocated chunk inside this logical partition - could that be your lost partition?

Give testdisk a try and see what it can find.
https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Hi, thank you so much for all the answers.
With test disc I was able to see some old files to undelete - unfortunately not the one needed.
Since I am at the beginning anyway, would it be a good idea just to factory reset the computer and clean install Linux Mint,
so I don't have such a mess of disc partitions and the OS would run quicker, is it a good idea ? How could I do it?

///the Result of Test disk Analasis :

Disk /dev/sda - 640 GB / 596 GiB - CHS 77825 255 63

The harddisk (640 GB / 596 GiB) seems too small! (< 750 GB / 699 GiB)
Check the harddisk size: HD jumpers settings, BIOS detection...

The following partitions can't be recovered:
Partition Start End Size in sectors
Linux 39410 246 5 91262 36 38 832989184
Linux 41093 153 21 89682 65 47 780576768
Linux 41094 60 55 89682 228 18 780576768
Linux 41094 223 26 89683 135 52 780576768
Linux 41096 0 1 89684 167 27 780576768
Linux 41096 70 63 89684 238 26 780576768
Linux 41099 183 45 89688 96 8 780576768
Linux 41099 248 46 89688 161 9 780576768
Linux 41106 121 40 89695 34 3 780576768
> HPFS - NTFS 74380 213 10 86057 174 62 187588601

Windows does not play nice with other OSs. The installer, in particular, provides NO option for leaving the disk in-tact and simply choosing one partition to install to. The only choice when installing Windows is to wipe the entire disk, so that's what it did.

Not in my experience. I did a fresh install of Windows 10 on my multi-boot laptop, and the installer presented a view of the partitioned disk and asked which of the partitions to use for the install. The only "not nice" thing it did was install its own primary boot loader. That's pretty necessary, considering the number of times Windows has to reboot during the install procedure.

Was this recent? That wasn't my experience when I had to install Windows 10 a few times on my laptop about 6 months ago. I was using a "recovery USB" that was made from within Windows to do the reinstallation though, it wasn't a fresh install off of a retail disk, maybe that's the difference?

It was 2 months ago, Sept. 15, 2017, when I gave up trying to get the version 1703 "Creators update" to upgrade my laptop and did a new install of that version from an ISO downloaded from Microsoft. That laptop is triple boot, with Windows 7, Windows 10, and CentOS 6.

I'll run some other tests with various versions. Pardon me while I image the disk first, just in case.

OK, so I tried with an installation disk for the original Windows 10 release and with an old, purchased Windows 7 installation disk. In each case, after being presented with the option to "Upgrade" (keep your old settings and files) vs. "Custom" (erase all your files and settings) and choosing "Custom", I was presented with a list of the partitions on the drive and asked to choose which to use for the installation. I did not proceed beyond that point, but my experience in September was that it did what I asked. Yes, there was some opportunity for confusion because what Linux calls primary partition 4, the installer calls partition 9. That's because my extended partition is partition 3, and the installer apparently enumerates the logical partitions within before finding that last primary.

Although it wouldn't have helped this time as a windows 10 install spanked the disk. I install my linux to have a /home partition. Should i need to reinstall my operating system i just give it swap & 1 more partition for everything. Once i'm up and running i manually edit /etc/fstab to mount /home at boot up