Member Avatar for asaidi

Hi
i have a px running with xp and i had a lot of files and folders..because i had a virus that i could not take it was crashing my internet then i want to install a second boot ubuntu..
and i did not format any drive
when it was finished i cannot see my c: and all the files..and now i boot with mint maya linux the same the c: is not showing
any help please ...

  • 2 Contributors
  • 4 Replies
  • 135 Views
  • 20 Hours Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by gabeandjaydwells

Dani AI

Generated

reported that after adding Ubuntu/Mint the Windows C: volume disappeared; correctly suggested recovery tools. The fdisk-style output posted in the thread indicates the partition table may have been replaced or the Windows partition reused for Linux, so the first priority is to avoid any writes to that disk (further writes reduce recovery chances).

Boot a Linux live USB and inspect the disk signature and partition layout with filesystem/partition viewers rather than writing to the drive. Useful commands to run from the live session:

lsblk -f
sudo parted -l
sudo blkid

If no NTFS entries appear or an ext4 partition spans the whole disk, the installer likely overwrote Windows. A safe recovery workflow is: (1) make a full image of the disk to an external drive with GNU ddrescue, preserving the original; (2) run TestDisk against that image to search for and restore lost partition entries; (3) if TestDisk cannot restore directories, run PhotoRec (file carving) on the image to recover files without original filenames/structure. Example ddrescue usage (adjust target paths and mount points to the live environment):

sudo ddrescue -f -n /dev/sda /media/usb/disk-image.img /media/usb/ddrescue.log

TestDisk can find deleted NTFS partitions and rebuild the partition table; if a partition is found it is possible to list files and copy them to another drive before writing changes. If an NTFS partition remains intact, mounting it read-only preserves data:

sudo mount -o ro -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows

For reference and downloads: TestDisk documentation and GNU ddrescue. If the data is critical and the above steps feel risky, professional data recovery should be considered.

Recommended Answers

All 4 Replies

Member Avatar for gabeandjaydwells

u can use "fips" from a bash prompt and see if your windows drive is still there. (fips is a partition program. I think you can do like.. "man fips" from bash for the manual on it.) It won't be called "C:\", instead it will be //hda/disk1 or something like that.. you can mount and then list the contents to see if the files are there. ("ls -a" to list files)

it's been years since I've used fips or linux, sorry. If you did overwrite your xp drive you can use a program called "test-disk" and it can recover corrupted/overwritten drives. I'm not sure if you'll be able to get all files back but I bet you can get most.

hope this helps..

Member Avatar for asaidi

Hi
Thank you very much
i tried fips and testdisk both not recognized in linux mint maya
and i m new in linux..

Member Avatar for asaidi

Hi
that what i get when i run fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19452 cylinders, total 312500000 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000d20df
and really i m sure my data it is this disk
how i can have access ?
any help please or any suggestion ?

Member Avatar for gabeandjaydwells

if that is the only physical disk that you have on your pc then you overwrote your data when you installed linux. unless you have logical partitions but I believe they would have shown up with fdisk. If someone else can confirm this it would be much appreciated. Do you have more than one drive on your disk? did/do you partition them?

I'm not sure you are going to be able to get your files back, sorry. The last resort method, that I use anyway, is test-disk. It's a great file recovery program and is free. I don't have the url for it off hand but you can bing/google it and it should show up. It's fairly easy to use and has worked well for me over the years. I'm just not sure with going 2 levels deep if it will be able to get your xp files back. This is where backing your files up regularly helps.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.