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I went away from the Linux world for a decade or so. Now that I'm trying my way back, that nice little warning that told me that I would lost all my files when replacing Windows XP failed to be clear in that it would not only replace the partition where my old windows was (10 GB), but also any and all other partitions of the same hard disk (my 200 and some GB collection made from pure MP3 and JPG files). This is so not cool for a migration that had to run smooth.

So I tooked the 250 GB HD and placed on a PC with Ubuntu 14, installed TestDisk, went to all the Deep Search process, and got into a NTFS file system with only like 1% of the files in it (well, all of the files of that sole folder). There was none of my other 99 folders on it (number aproximated).

I really need a hand with this. It's not like anything has overwritten those files, and I would understand that some 10GB of data is lost. But 90% of it, from one simple formatting and repartitioning process? Really?

Hermes Villafuerte
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2 Answers2

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I had a damaged hard drive that was not readable via a file system some time ago and was able to recover that data that was not already corrupted by using ddrescue utility. I used an external hard drive that was empty and had a larger capacity than the hard drive that I wanted to copy. I then installed ddrescue to my ix system and ran a script that copied the entire contents of one drive to the external. it took a VERY long time, but it accomplished what i intended and was able to recover what i could from the corrupted drive.

Please be advised that ddrescue may irreversibly wipe the contents of your drive so be very careful and FOLLOW instructions carefully. I created a bootable usb with ubuntu rescue mix and made sre that ddrescue was installed on it... if not install it from the repos then I followed the instructions on the main ddrescue gnu page...

http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/

---hope this helps

gingamann
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you can try this - anytime i work with datarecovery I prefer to work with it externally - though this will increase the processing time spent working with it - i find it a more logical approach - use a usb thumb with bootable image for say.. ubuntu rescue mix as an example.. regardless how you want to approach it..

execute: sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

though, this is probably already installed.

1) unmount said partition to carve

Execute: sudo umount /dev/sdwhatever

2) I'd create a list of all deleted files that this tool can find that are recoverable (the -p 100 tag defines 100% recoverable - leave it out of you want)

Execute: sudo ntfsundelete /dev/sdwhatever -m '*.mp3' -p 100 > deletedmusicwhatever.txt

3) review the list - the directory you are in when the command is executed is where the text file will be created ~/home/deletedmusicwhatever.txt - I dont know off the top of my head if something like: '*.wav''*.mp4''*.mp3' to search for multiple files types at once will work. May be a better idea to work with one at a time...

4) provided there are recoverable files that meet expectations then copy the files to an external drive

Execute: sudo ntfsundelete /dev/sdwhatever -u -m '*.mp3' -p 100 -d /media/nameofexternaldrive/recoveredmusicfolder

gingamann
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