A 'Western Digital' 120gb drive of mine has recently become cluttered with errors (the entire drive is NTFS). For some reason, Windows cannot boot while it is plugged directly into the computer, and cannot read from it when it is connected via USB 2.0. Luckily, linux (i'm Using Ubuntu Live) can read it through the USB. Unfortunately, although I have successfully copied most of the things I need from the drive using Ubuntu, something has gone terribly wrong.

A folder which contained some other folders, some of which in turn contained pictures, has disspeared. More specifically, the name of the folder is still a file, but under properties it is of type "Unknown Type" and the folder icon has been replaced by a footprint or a hand print or something like that (it's green).

So my question is; is there some way to recover these lost pictures from an NTFS partition through linux?

Any help is greatly appreciated, because i'm stumped! Thanks in advanced.

Try "foremost". You'll likely have to download it separately, and you need to run it against the whole disk.

what error does windows give on it? trying to obtain your files from a NTFS partition with linux has proven not to be the smartest thing.

the support for NTFS should allow you to read the partition, but must likely it itscorrupt and will fail on certain locations. try getting it up again with erd commander, or maybe try setting a small/old windows (with NTFS support) and try fixing the partition. when all else fails, then try obtaining all you can with linux and hope you got it all.

most important lesson: backups!