Retrieving data from a Ubuntu partition
 

Hello all, I've come here obviously because I'm in need of some advice from you Linux experts.

I had a dual-boot system setup. Win XP Pro w\ Ubuntu 9.04 and my bootloader of choice was grub.

I recently made a mistake - I totally forgot about one very important folder on my Ubuntu installation and reformatted and reinstalled my injured Windows partition. Quickly realizing my wrong doing, I was immediately relieved to have come about the idea that I could throw in my Ubuntu disc, at which point it would probably detect my Ubuntu filesystem and restore my installation.

Stupidly next, I left my computer for a day with my non-password protected screensaver(fresh installation), and my nephew came into my room to try to play a video game in Windows and somehow(?!?!) managed to it appears quick format my Ubuntu partition in Windows.

My questions is, is it possible to recover my Ubuntu installation, and if not, does anyone know how I would go about recovering that folder? I've done it in Windows but am definitely not a Linux wizard.

Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide :)

- Grallis

But how? Ubuntu partition shouldn't be visible from windows under normal circumstances. If the partition is still intact along with your folder then you can recover your data, if it has been formatted then it is another question.

It wasnt visible in My Computer. It was only visible in the Disc Management screen, reachable via a right click on 'My Computer'. How my nephew got there, I'll never know, but when I walked in and saw him at that screen I knew it was a disaster.

Bump?

Has he formatted the partition? I can only guide you if you are sure he hasn't formatted the ubuntu partition where all your data is. It's simple , you will just need a Live CD and then
But it seems it's already formatted, I don't think it's possible to recover data from a formatted partition.

Did you just have the idea or did you actually check?
Because it sounds to me that your Ubuntu was gone the moment you and your poor nephew has nothing to do with it ;)
If you however just worked on that partition the Ubuntu will still be there.

If it has been formatted however then it depends on how this was done.
quick or full?

I'm really not sure but I made an NTFS partition under linux the other week - with "quick" it was just that.
But without that argument - a full format was started, stating: "initializing the device with zeroes"
In that case there is not a chance to recover anything.
One tool I used myself once (with success) to recover lost partition information is "gpart". (the data was untouched, just the partition table was altered)

HTH

Don't know if it will certainly work, but here it is...

First mount your Linux partition in windows using http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader
The use Recover my files, http://www.recovermyfiles.com/ and try to recover your lost linux data to windows.

I tries this with pure windows system and it worked almost flawlessly.