h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hey, there.

I'm starting to suspect that I may have accidentally deleted most of my Ubuntu partition.

In my thread 'puter troubles, I posted my results from fdisk -l. It doesn't look good.

But here's another clue. I don't seem to be able to log in on my normal user account. If I boot up on the LiveCD and try to switch users it doesn't recognize "rob" (my normal username). OK, I just assumed that was due to being logged in on the CD.

But searching the forums for how to recover your data when you can't boot, someone suggested using a terminal window from the LiveCD and using su to access it, as in "su username". I tried "su rob" and got "unknown id: rob"

Have I lost everything, you think?

Your user won't be recognized while running from a live cd.

Instead of trying to log in as your user, log in as root

The prompt in the terminal should become a #

Make sure the partition containing your data is mounted -- type

mount

at the prompt in a terminal

if it isn't mounted, you can mount it via the terminal,

First create a mount point

mkdir /mnt/mystuff

Then mount the partition

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/mystuff

Now you can navigate to the mounted partition, using the gui file manager (thunar or nautilus, for example), available in the live cd you're running.

However, ALL the above is currently moot, because...

From the fdisk results on your PS it appears the partition table is corrupted. (But all your stuff should still be there!)

You'll need access to a working computer on which to create a live cd, or perhaps someone you know has a copy of testdisk already on a live cd.

Unless you've overwritten the partition, you can very likely recover using the testdisk tool --
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Livecd
Instructions on how to use the app are available on that site. (It really works, trust me!)

~~~

~/.mozilla is 'nix terminal shorthand for /home/username/.mozilla

For example, if your username is rob, and you've logged in as rob, you can quickly navigate to sub-folder /.mozilla of your /home/rob folder by typing cd ~/.mozilla

I've got to run, but I'll check back later. Don't reformat or anything!

BTW, I'm in western Canada, so expect some delay in hearing from me.

I'm in Texas, so not too much delay.

I'm not going to reformat anything for at least 9 days, when Ubuntu 9.10 comes out.

I hope my data is still there, I just don't know how to reach it. I'll read up on that TestDisk and data recovery as I'm fairly sure I'll need it.

When I get back from lunch, I'll see if I can find my folders with root access. Will "sudo -i" give me that or will I need to somehow log in as root? My root password slips my mind at the moment but I've got it at the house.

Just having a quick break...

If the partition table is borked, your login is probably irrelevant, but you can try.

iirc, sudo mkdir /mnt/mystuff will create the mount point, and sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/mystuff will mount the parition, if it is mountable

If ubuntu live-cd asks for a password, just hit enter -- there shouldn't be a password set on the live-cd.

If that does not work, create a temporary root user -- sudo passwd root -- will prompt for a password for the new root user, so enter something simple

enter it again, to confirm

now su to root, by entering the command 'su' then the password you just created.

now you are root, so you may proceed with creating the mount point, mounting the partition

BUT I think you'll need to fix the partition table anyway, after which grub should let you boot into Ubuntu as normal

Yea, my original root password was unrecognized. Now I'm on to data recovery.

I've downloaded and burned a copy of the GPARTED disc which contains TestDisk.

I'll be playing with those today.

Just 8 more days until Ubuntu 9.10.

Since Vista is still functioning, I'll keep tinkering with it until then. Then it's good bye Vista whether or not I've recovered anything.

I've ran testdisk and after a "deeper" search it spotted 4 missing Linux partitions. When I select P for List Files I get "no files found, filesystem seems damaged". Yep.

I'm not quite sure what to do next though. Should I [A]dd partition?

I'm going to keep reading the tutorials I've found but their not very clear to me yet.

The four "different" Linux partitions are all the same size, they just start at different points.

Start End
7020 8722
7024 8726
7027 8729
7028 8730

I'm assuming those are all the same partition, just different 'ghosts' of it.

I haven't really found much useful help online. What's written down to my level doesn't tell me anything and what's specific usually doesn't seem to match my situation.

The instructions at help.ubuntu.com for data recovery just say--

>>Run testdisk and it will scan your computer for media and offer you a menu-driven way to recover your partition. <<

Adding another partition won't do much, I'm afraid.

There's some additional testdisk instructions here -- http://cabmec1.cnea.gov.ar/linux/soft/testdisk/doc/testdisk.html

Incidentally, are you using GRUB to boot Vista?

Also, can you recall what type of filesystem your Linux partition used. If it's ext2/3, you may be able to recover the files even from a damaged filesystem, using photorec -- the companion program to testdisk.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec#Filesystems

You can also try ddrescue, which can copy files from damaged disks/partitions. It's probably available on your 'buntu live cd, but you might want a more recent release -- http://partedmagic.com/

Don't give up!

One of the partitions will be correct, and should show that it contains data..

Take a look here: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

I'll do some more digging this evening

Keep posting any new results from testdisk, but don't 'write' anything to your disk yet

I was actually on that step by step page as you were posting.

It doesn't look good. There were no files found in any of those linux partitions, nothing. I'm afraid that all the farting around I did when I thought it was just a grub problem and the several boots to Vista sessions along with all the "updates" it insisted on doing may have made this all a moot point.
I'll take a look at photoRec and see if anything looks promising.

I actually am getting close to giving up.

Ugh... Tried photorec but couldn't find my external drive to send files to. May have sent them to the original drive which probably means if they weren't lost before, they are now.

Thanks for your help though. At least your advice made sense. What I found online was confusing to say the least.

I'll pick at it a little more but I'm resigning myself to just a new installation in 8 days. Maybe 9 or 10 depending on how long it takes to download with the expected rush.

You could post the problem on the Debian forum: http://forums.debian.net/

There are some real Linux boffins there.

You may be gently chided about Ubuntu, and chastised for not having a backup, but someone there may be able to help

I didn't lose anything I can't live without.