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I recently installed Ubuntu alongside windows 7 on my laptop (500 Gb hdd). In the partition step there were 3 partitions (recovery partition, hp tools, and the one I have Windows on). I selected new partition table, and as a result I got one partition of (500 Gb free space). Then I created a new partition (of 25000 GB, type: logical, ext4journaling file system). The installation went perfectly and Ubuntu is running fine.

However when rebooting it goes to Ubuntu, and I can't find my Windows 7 option in the GRUB menu. Also, I can't find my recovery and Windows partitions.

I don't have my Windows installation on a DVD, it is on the recovery partition. I am afraid that my data on Windows are gone.

Is there a way to boot to Windows without losing my data?

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2 Answers 2

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Your data is likely all gone. When you selected "Create new partition table" you told your installer to ignore whatever it saw on the hard drive and just pretend it was a blank slate.

You may want to look into tools like photorec to try to recover your data. If this is the path you're going to take, shut your computer down now and don't boot into your hard drive - only boot from the live USB you originally used.

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"Create new partition table" ignores what's on disk and starts afresh, overwriting the data and all partitions.

You can try recovering your computer's recovery partitions and data by:

  1. STOP USING YOUR COMPUTER. You may overwrite what recoverable.
  2. Boot from a liveUSB and use Testdisk.
  3. Choose the recover partition table option.
  4. If you're lucky and your recovery partition is recovered you may try restoring your windows installation.
  5. Then before installing Ubuntu, in Windows, Disk Management, Shrink drive C: by 20-50 Gb to create free space for Ubuntu.
  6. Boot liveUSB again, choose the "something else" option and create two new partitions, one 2-4Gb Swap partition and an ext4 partition for the rest, mount point /.

Good luck.

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  • I followed your advice till step 4, I used testdisk and I selected "deeper search" I got the following: [IMG]i62.tinypic.com/25jzj4o.png[/IMG] Then I chose continue, after that I got [IMG]i61.tinypic.com/14uvpcw.png[/IMG] . Then I set the first NTFS partition and the "hp tools" partition as "p" and the recovery partition as "*": [IMG]i57.tinypic.com/jb1r2b.png[/IMG]. Then I pressed "write". After rebooting only the NTFS and the "hp tools partitions appeared. Also, when I opened the ntfs partition I got this notification: [IMG]i57.tinypic.com/64f8k8.png[/IMG]
    – Abedal Rahman Al Mkdah
    Oct 11, 2014 at 11:15
  • please help me, did I do something wrong ? Or is there any other software that I can use?
    – Abedal Rahman Al Mkdah
    Oct 11, 2014 at 11:42
  • I'm not familiar with testdisk but the recovery partition is usually a hidden partition so it's "normal" that you don't see it. Many manufacturers boot from this partition by pressing a key on power up. For HP this seems to be F11. Try turning on anf press and hold F11.
    – To Do
    Oct 11, 2014 at 13:19

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