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this post may include my own stupidity, so as much as I'm wallowing from sadness, I just would appreciate some help.

Originally my HDD is in 2 partitions (total combined of 160GB, I think) in C: as 140++GB and D: as 10GB.

due to the crash, I decided to run Ubuntu, then decided to install it.

What happened as following:

  1. Ubuntu installer crashed.
  2. Boot up using usb boot key (created using unetin)
  3. Discovered there was totally 0MB free of HDD space (due to Win8 trying to repair itself
  4. Saw a new partition of 3.7GB (i think this was the Ubuntu file)

*Due to the fact that I do not have any form of external HDDs, and I needed to install a new OS so that i could continue work (i know, lambast me for this, blasted thundering typhoons) I proceeded as following.

  1. Gathered all personal and work files into one big folder, it was 70GB
  2. While still in "try ubuntu" mode, proceeded to delete every known file except for the one big folder of personal and work files.
  3. installed ubuntu. this time it insisted on DELETING and INSTALLING ubuntu.
  4. proceeded with installation.
  5. another what seemed to be a hang occured, but i decided to be patient and sleep it off.
  6. woke up to find this:

My predicament lies within 2 thing:

  1. Is my drive wiped and repartitioned by Ubuntu? (that means total loss right?)
  2. Assuming all is not lost, Can I retrieve the files? (by mounting or anything?)

Please advise.

add-on: previously somebody suggested trying sudo mount command:

This is what I did

ALT+F2, then typing in "sudo mount 160 GB Hard Disk" and "sudo mount [160 GB Hard Disk]".

(the name of the HDD, oddly can't be changed). But has yielded no results.

the name of the HDD displayed is "160GB Hard Disk"

What more can I do?

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  • I'm sorry, I misread and -interpreted the question. Also, in the case of the mount command, you would insert the partition's device file name (dev/sda or something along the line), not the display name, without the brackets. See below for the updated answer.
    – user98085
    Oct 28, 2012 at 0:55

1 Answer 1

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Alright, after reading through it for the third time.

What we currently see is you hard drive being displayed twice. Once as the installation, once as the disk itself. Since I assume you're using 12.10 and I can't verify what the screen should look like, I'll also assume that this is not intended.

Unless you had the second partition only as large as a handful of GB (or are wrong on the total disk size), your partitions have been merged. This may have happened following the issues with the first Ubuntu installation.

However, even if this merge did not happen, there is no way there could be 70GB of data on this hard drive that are not on the partition of the current Ubuntu installation. You could try to check your disk status through the Dash->"Disks" app.

Overall, my money is on Murphy's Law: This data is lost, after the disk was merged into one partition and Ubuntu installed over it. The merge probably happened during the first Ubuntu installation & crash.

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  • Yes this is a 12.10. The original partition is C:/140GB and D:/10GB. now disks says its a single 160GB file.
    – Badi Yee
    Oct 28, 2012 at 0:59
  • @BadiYee Then, as I said, I'm sorry to inform you that your partitions have been merged and the data removed ... and that it is unlikely to be able to nail down what exactly caused this to happen. Murphy's Law in action.
    – user98085
    Oct 28, 2012 at 1:02

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