Lost Documents and Photos and desktop files and folders

[Steven Davies-Morris]

Chris Mohler wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 5:42 PM, Roger Benham
> <rogerbenham2000 at yahoo.ca> wrote:
>> Well it can hardly get worse. I downloaded the .iso, burned a CD
>> of 8.10
>> 
>> I installed 8.10 following instructions (I thought).
>> 
>> So now I have 8.10 installed but everything that I had in 8.04
>> has disappeared. All my desktop documents and folders, all my
>> home folder items such as photographs, pictures, documents.
>> 
>> The disadvantage of digital photos as 14 months worth were in
>> there including those of my wife. I am a selling photographer
>> (not a geek).
>> 
>> Is there any way I can recover what I lost?
> 
> Hi Roger,
> 
> If you did a clean install of 8.10 (and performed the step warning
> you that "All data on your drive will be lost!", then things are
> looking bleak ;(
> 
> Hindsight is 20/20 of course - but if you have any sort of
> electronic data that you need to keep, you should regularly back up
> to DVD and a backup hard drive.  Often we tend to learn this lesson
> the hard way :(
> 
> All that being said, if you are up for some serious forensics, it 
> might be possible to recover some of your files.  I have not done
> this in a while, but the general process is this:
> 
> 1. Do not keep using your hard drive to boot - the longer you do
> so, the more of the old files are overwritten!
> 
> 2. Boot from a live CD (the 8.10 disk should work OK - select  "Try
>  without installing")
> 
> 3. Mount your hard drive that contained your photos (might be as
> easy as right-clicking the volume shown on the desktop, but don't
> recall)
> 
> 4. Use a program such as foremost to recover files.  Depending on
> size of disk, speed of your PC, etc - this process will likely take
> quite some time.  See this article (particularly update 2) for an
> example of running foremost: 
> http://www.ubuntu-unleashed.com/2008/04/howtorecover-and-undelete-text-file-in.html
>  There's also a bit of chicken-and-egg to watch out for here.  Do
> NOT recover the files back onto your original drive - doing so will
>  overwrite files that have yet to be recovered!  The ideal scenario
> is to use something like an external HD to recover to.
> 
> I realize this is just a rough outline, and if you want further 
> explanation on any of those steps, don't hesitate to ask - there
> are others on the list who are far more knowledgeable than I.
> 
> Good Luck!
> 
> Chris

I've not used Foremost but I have used Ontrack's tools under Windows
to do pretty much the same thing -- in this case I'd go with "raw" as
the partition type. Up front it probably looks right now to Roger like
he's hit the iceberg. But as long as he doesn't panic, and nothing
further is done to the drive in question, a great deal of that
important "wiped" data will be recoverable to another hard drive or a
removable drive.

Reading the blurb at the provided link, it sounds like Foremost will
get back whatever is there that hasn't been overwritten. I suggest
downloading it onto some removable USB media that can then be mounted
by the "live" bootable CD.

Though the horse is out of the barn, for future reference this is
exactly why having /home exist as a separate mountable partition (or
even mountable partition on a different hard drive) is a very good idea.

Finally, if this is all too overwhelming for Roger, if he is by some
chance in Southern California (within a couple of hours drive, give or
take) I'm willing to come to him with a machine, a big spare drive,
and tools to help out in the spirit of been-there-blown-my-head-off.
-- 
Cheers, SDM -- a 21st Century Schizoid Man
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