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I had a few issues on Ubuntu that I did not know how to solve, including not being unable to boot. I discovered that I could reinstall Ubuntu from an USB pendrive.

It has been said that the files would be safe if I reinstalled and used the same username and password.

I did that but all my files are missing.

How do I recover my files?

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3 Answers 3

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It has been said that the files would be safe if I reinstalled and used the same username and password.

Whoever said that lied to you. Unless you had /home on a separate partition, and in the new install chose to not format that partition, your files are unrecoverably gone. And even if /home was separate, if it was encrypted I hope you backed up the encryption key. Otherwise the files are still gone.

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  • I had no backup because I thought everything would be safe but I guess not... Apr 7, 2013 at 10:29
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On re-installing Ubuntu use option "Upgrade" to not wipe all home directories. You may then have created a new account rather than using the existing one. In case your file system was not encrypted your data may still be present in the home directory of your previous user. To test this open Nautilus and point it to "File System -> /home. See what directories are there.

If your old HOME does exist you can point your new user account to this directory by installing gnome-system-tools Install gnome-system-tools and run Users & Gropus as was further elaborated in this question:

After Unlock settings with your administrator credentials you may from "Advanced Settings" change the location of a users's home directory:

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Choose the directory of your old user account to recover all your data there.

In case your installation did overwrite your previous data you may be able to recover those data that have not been overwritten yet. See the following:

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Did you have a /home partition on your hard drive on your earlier Ubuntu? If you had a separate /home partition and you didn't reformat that during installation your files should be still there but not visible due to the partition not being mounted.

More likely, you formatted your whole drive and your files are more or less lost. I personally never used them but there are several tools to recover lost files. You might want to have a look into photorec or testdisk. I think Testdisk should be your main candidate, as it is able to recover whole partitions. Have a look at the following articles: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery and http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=387922.

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  • I did it by usb version 12.10 I didnt have a home partition, I was looking at the tools you mentioned but I don't think they'll help me Apr 7, 2013 at 10:29

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