Lost Partition

[TechLady]

A linux install gone wrong. Was installing the new Ubuntu on a spare SSD I have in my system, but forgot to unplug my data drives. Even though I SPECIFICALLY told it to NOT install on anything but the SSD...it touched one of my data drives and it's now unreadable (by Windows anyway). A partition program is showing the data is still there. Tools/methods to fix this? I'd normally deal with this with some research and experimentation but this is data I can't really afford to hose right now.

http://pancakeonastick.com/misc/lostpartitions.jpg

That's what the drive looks like in AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional Edition 8.1

 

[frase]

I use Partition Magic via a bootable USB or DiskPart within Windows 10. MiniTool Partition Wizard is an awesome piece of software as well, before you go messing with data that is important. Have used with great success in the past especially with Photographers.

It sounds like it has a missing drive letter, had this happen sometimes, though important to back up the data first.

https://www.partitionwizard.com/

If using Diskpart on Win10

Step 1. Open command prompt by pressing Win+ R, typing cmd run as admin.

Step 2. Type diskpart, press Enter key to launch diskpart.exe.

Enter -

• list disk
  
  
• select disk x(x refers to the disk which has the lost partition)
  
  
• list volume
  
  
• select volume to recover
  
  
• assign letter=g or whatever

 

[NJW]

... it touched one of my data drives and it's now unreadable (by Windows anyway).

So back up the data drive from within Linux, then investigate what happened. Use a live CD if you're nervous about the installed Linux. I'd do that anyway, before you try repairing from Windows.

What was on your 'spare SSD' before you installed Ubuntu? If you reformatted it, it likely received a new UUID, which is probably what upset Windows.

What's your use case for dual-boot? For most things, I find virtual machines to be more robust than dual-boot: Windows hasn't played well with dual-boot for several years now (you'll be doing a lot of boot repairs for Ubuntu) and virtualising has come on in leaps and bounds.

 

[frase]

So back up the data drive from within Linux, then investigate what happened. Use a live CD if you're nervous about the installed Linux. I'd do that anyway, before you try repairing from Windows.

What was on your 'spare SSD' before you installed Ubuntu? If you reformatted it, it likely received a new UUID, which is probably what upset Windows.

What's your use case for dual-boot? For most things, I find virtual machines to be more robust than dual-boot: Windows hasn't played well with dual-boot for several years now (you'll be doing a lot of boot repairs for Ubuntu) and virtualising has come on in leaps and bounds.

It is the the mbr which is fubar I think.

 

[pcpete]

First make a sector image using dd or ddresue to experiment on the clone. No reason to be worried about making things worse

You could try test disk to recover partitions. Can you read it from the Linux side or just not windows?

 

[Haole Boy]

What's your use case for dual-boot? For most things, I find virtual machines to be more robust than dual-boot: Windows hasn't played well with dual-boot for several years now (you'll be doing a lot of boot repairs for Ubuntu) and virtualising has come on in leaps and bounds.

I switched from a Windows VM on a Linux Mint host to dual boot. When you attach a drive to your Linux machine via a SATA to USB adapter, it shows up in the Windows VM as a network drive. Can't run Fab's Autobackup using a network drive as the 'source'. And IIRC, Drive Snapshot (my preferred backup program) also has issues with a network drive being the 'source'.

I've never had to do any boot repairs on my setup. Maybe I'm just lucky as I'm no guru in this area.

Harry Z

 

[TechLady]

It is the the mbr which is fubar I think.

Right, I think that's the problem.

 

[NJW]

That's what the drive looks like in AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional Edition 8.1

I think I misunderstood – is it the unallocated drive that's the problem? Not that Drive E: is unreadable in Windows?

I thought the unallocated drive was Ubuntu (thus ext4, which wouldn't be visible in Windows without additional drivers).

 

[lcoughey]

If the data is important:

Step 1 - clone the drive
Step 2 - search for the partition with testdisk and write new MBR or GPT to "fix" the drive or scan with a data recovery program like R-Studio and save the files out to another drive

Because most minitool products are absolute garbage and they are heavy spammers online, I'd never recommend any of their products out of principal.

 

[glennd]

If the data is important:

Step 1 - clone the drive
Step 2 - search for the partition with testdisk and write new MBR or GPT to "fix" the drive or scan with a data recovery program like R-Studio and save the files out to another drive

Because most minitool products are absolute garbage and they are heavy spammers online, I'd never recommend any of their products out of principal.

You forgot a step:
Step 1a - Take a copy of the clone

 

[Markverhyden]

Third vote on test disk. Haven't tried it on GPT but worked well with MBR in the past. If this is stuff you really want I'd also be grabbing things via R-Studio before trying to restore/recover the partition table. Gotta know if the data is actually good.

 

[Joep]

What Luke said. DMDE is an alternative for data recovery + partition undelete.

 

[TechLady]

I do technically have a backup of the data through Backblaze. But it's a lot of data and if I can figure out a quick way to get it back up and running that would be better. Thanks for all the suggestions.