total newbie needs help
 

Hi All,

I was using windows xp when i got hit by a trojan and erased system files. as a result, my computer crashed completely. A friend suggested that I load linux on my hard drive and then I would be able to recover my files on the hdd. upon installing ubuntu 8.10 over the hdd, i found to my dismay that I had lost all my files and folders.

Is there any way to retrieve those files that were previously on the windows partition? note that the whole hdd is linux ...

hoping that there are some gurus who can give a dummy advice.

My mistake--reopened

You should use the live cd, instead of installing on the HD
If you installed linux to the HD, it has been formatted, so all data will be gone.
However, normally it would not delete the windows partiton, unless you asked for it during installation.
I would suggest to boot from a live cd, and take a look at the partitions on the HD

First, find the friend and confiscate his "free advice and worth every penny" license........;)

Now you know that installing something (anything) to a hard drive will overwrite anything that is there. But that is not precisely correct, so there is hope......

In you case, you apparently let Ubuntu have the whole disk. First it set up a filesystem stucture, and then copied its files. Presumably, this did not fill the disk. In the space that is left, what you have is:
1. the new filesystem structure.
2. the remains of whatever files were there.

The most commonly recommended tools are "testdisk" and "photorec". (Both are by the same author---just Google "testdisk" and you'll find them. Since you have used the whole drive, you need to run these tools from another drive or from CD (Don't know if these particular tools come this way.)
One way to go is to simply install your drive in another computer.

If the data is valuable, you should clone the drive before playing with it---If it is REALLY valuable, you might be better off with a professional recovery service.

Not gone---hidden. Normally, "format" means "install filesytem". This writes structures to the drive, but does not erase all existing data.

First try this:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/mis...ing-linux.html

If doesn't apply/help:

http://forums.techguy.org/windows-nt...r-how-fix.html

http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/a...linux-and-mac/

If while installing linux, you told the installation routine to not overwrite the windows partition, but somehow the grub bootloader has not installed a boot to windows option:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...7214904AAHX7qW

Other tools:

http://www.stellarinfo.com/download.htm