If you're still up for dealing with this, I"m going to be away from my computer from 9-10AM PDT. Otherwise, I will be here and available to work on it pretty much all day (although I dearly hope it won't take that much time).

Ok, post a message when you get back at 10AM. Thanks.

Back at my computer now. This is the last output in my terminal

TestDisk 7.0, Data Recovery Utility, April 2015
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org
MS Data 1050624 968617983 967567360
Directory /home/drew

>drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 31-Mar-2018 17:26 .
drwxr-xr-x 0 0 4096 19-Oct-2017 19:23 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1001 1001 655 19-Oct-2017 19:23 .profile
drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 19-Oct-2017 19:23 .mozilla
-rw-r--r-- 1001 1001 220 19-Oct-2017 19:23 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1001 1001 4000 19-Oct-2017 19:23 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 31-Mar-2018 17:21 .config
-rw-r--r-- 0 0 18002 19-Oct-2017 19:24 .face
drwx------ 1001 1001 4096 31-Mar-2018 17:22 .cache
-rw-r--r-- 1001 1001 17922 31-Mar-2018 20:46 .xsession-errors
-rw------- 1001 1001 31 31-Mar-2018 08:14 .dmrc
drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 26-Mar-2018 15:46 Desktop
drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 31-Mar-2018 17:35 Downloads
drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 26-Mar-2018 15:46 Templates
Next
Use Left arrow to go back, Right to change directory, h to hide deleted files
q to quit, : to select the current file, a to select all files
C to copy the selected files, c to copy the current file

Strange - no Documents folder there either.

Ok, go back up to .. and then down to kad.

TestDisk 7.0, Data Recovery Utility, April 2015
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org
MS Data 1050624 968617983 967567360
Directory /home/kad

>drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 27-Jan-2017 21:42 .
drwxr-xr-x 0 0 4096 19-Oct-2017 19:23 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1001 1001 655 27-Jan-2017 21:40 .profile
drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 27-Jan-2017 21:40 .mozilla
-rw-r--r-- 1001 1001 220 27-Jan-2017 21:40 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1001 1001 4000 27-Jan-2017 21:40 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 27-Jan-2017 21:41 .config
-rw------- 1001 1001 123 27-Jan-2017 21:41 .Xauthority
-rw-r--r-- 1001 1001 4669 28-Jan-2017 00:00 .xsession-errors
-rw------- 1001 1001 29 27-Jan-2017 21:41 .dmrc
drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 27-Jan-2017 21:41 Desktop
drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 27-Jan-2017 21:41 Downloads
drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 27-Jan-2017 21:41 Templates
drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 27-Jan-2017 21:41 Public
Next
Use Left arrow to go back, Right to change directory, h to hide deleted files
q to quit, : to select the current file, a to select all files
C to copy the selected files, c to copy the current file

Ok. Those are all old folders and there is nothing there.

Were any of the folders or files in all three directories showing in red (i.e. they indicating that they had been deleted)?

NO nothing in red (or any other colour)

Try hitting the h key and see if that makes a difference.

If not, go back up and down into drew and hit the h key again.

If still not, continue down into Desktop.

h made no difference.

Here is the output from selecting desktop, then enter:

TestDisk 7.0, Data Recovery Utility, April 2015
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org
MS Data 1050624 968617983 967567360
Directory /home/kad/Desktop

>drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 27-Jan-2017 21:41 .
drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 27-Jan-2017 21:42 ..



Next
Use Left arrow to go back, Right to change directory, h to unhide deleted files
q to quit, : to select the current file, a to select all files
C to copy the selected files, c to copy the current file

Sorry, it was drew's Desktop directory that I wanted to have a look at (with the h key).

TestDisk 7.0, Data Recovery Utility, April 2015
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org
MS Data 1050624 968617983 967567360
Directory /home/drew/Desktop

>drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 26-Mar-2018 15:46 .
drwxr-xr-x 1001 1001 4096 31-Mar-2018 17:26 ..


Next
Use Left arrow to go back, Right to change directory, h to unhide deleted files
q to quit, : to select the current file, a to select all files
C to copy the selected files, c to copy the current file

Is there a facility in Mint for you to share screen with my computer?

I use TeamViewer normally for screen sharing, but I have to say that I am now starting to draw a blank. There should have at least been some deleted files present for recovery. The fact also that Testdisk sees your root partition as an Unknown filesystem type and then decides that MS Data has been deleted on that partition, but then treats that data as if it were on an ext filesystem is puzzling.

I think your best bet would be to start a new thread but make this one solely about data recovery. Refer to this thread on that if you feel that it would be beneficial to do so.

Normally I would recommend that if TestDisk doesn't work, that you should try PhotoRec (which comes with TestDisk). PhotoRec trawls the disk and retrieves documents etc., but at a lower level.

Here are instructions on how to use PhotoRec: https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec_Step_By_Step

Remember to recover any files to your USB stick.

I'm sorry I can't be of more help, but hopefully someone more experienced than I am will step up to the plate on a new thread.

1 members found this post helpful.

Many thanks for the time you spent on this. I am grateful and very much appreciate it.

I will start a new thread as you suggest and probably reference this one so that we don't have to cover the same ground.

Does PhotoRec only recover individual files or also folders?

Again thank you!

Neither, as far as I am aware. You tell it what sort of files you want it to look for, and it tries to recover all files on the disk that match the related file types.

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/File...ed_By_PhotoRec