I recently added 12.04 to a computer. During the partitioning only two partitions were listed, recovery, and the new ubuntu partition. I shunk the Ubuntu partition and left the extra space an free since I couldn't get the crappy partitioner now included with ubuntu installs to expand the windows parition. I proceeded thinking the recovery partition had the files, pictures, etc. on it. After installing ubuntu I used gparted to shrink the ubuntu partition, and expand the recovery partition. When I tried to boot into Windows I discovered my mistake. I used testdisk to try and recover the windows partition with the missing personal data, but when I view the folders in testdisk, none of the personal files are there. I guess the data could be overwritten, but I'm hoping it's still there somewhere. As a last resort I'm going to recover the largest partition on listed in testdisk, which has an HP (computer is hewlett packard), and seems to consist of the entire hard drive. If I still don't have the data, is there anything else I can do.
For anyone else searching for help, ALWAYS back up your data before you perform these types of operations. If I had done that I would have saved myself two days of work.
