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misha
Asked: 2016-01-22 01:23:58 +0800 CST

Installed Ubuntu on a machine with Windows 8.1. Failed to create dual-booting. Is my data on another partition permanently lost? [duplicate]

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I installed Ubuntu on a machine with Windows 8.1. And I think I screwed up big time while trying to figure out how to make the system a dual-booting one (the Ubuntu installer didn't detect that a Windows operating system was present on the computer. I assume it had to do with the way my USB-bootable drive was originally configured, but I'm not sure though). So, I believe I have installed Ubuntu over the Windows and the Windows, I think, has pretty much been wiped out. There were two partitions there: C, with the Windows itself and another one, D, with all my data.

Here are my questions:

  1. Do you think I have permanently lost all my data that was stored on disk D?
  2. If not, is there any possibility that the data could be recovered?
dual-boot

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    If you let the Ubuntu installer use the entire disk, then at least your bootloader is messed up with the Linux GRUB best case scenario, however your files may be gone. The easiest way to know for sure would be to use your Ubuntu USB drive and run in live mode, do not attempt to install, then search your HDD for leftover windows directories. If they are there, you can backup important files to the USB, an external drive, or upload them to cloud storage.

    There should be a volume option on the under the basic directories in the file navigator (assuming you are using desktop ubuntu, if not, Id recommend to get desktop ubuntu for easier searching of your drive) that will give you root to any leftover data that may be intact.

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  2. Actually what happens is this, when ever you load new operating system or a file in any memory drive (Hard disk,floppy disk,etc...).

    Your data will never be deleted(formated), It will be just over-written. It means that the data was replaced with the existing one.

    Even if you delete your file from recycle-bin, it isn't deleted permanently. Your operating system just ignores it as a file and it(os) was ready to manage data on those particular addresses of drive to be replaced with new data.

    So if you have installed Ubuntu on 'C' or 'D' drive that memory (around 3 to 4Gb) which will be used by the operating system on your hard disk(over-written)

    So there was no need to worry at all. I recommend you to download a 'Do Your Data Recovery' application for windows and recover all the data.

    1. Your data isn't permanently deleted. (you can recover them.)

    2. You can recover them by the above mentioned method.

    There were some great options available in Linux, but they were not user-friendly for a beginner.

    If you don't have windows operating system right now, I prefer to install it (In case if you are a beginner).

    Of-course there was another way that is through terminal,

    Command:

        ntfsundelete

    for the above command to work the drive which you were referring is supposed to be of 'ntfs-filesystem' and another condition is that should be a separate drive.

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