newbie: data lost with SUSE installation

[jptjptjpt]

I loaded SUSE Linux on my 2nd disk on my pc
I put it on my 2nd disk which I thought it was going to share with the data
that was already there. Its my 40 gig drive... I only have selected backups... I thought I was ok and then realized I had some family photos there that weren't backed up.
Windows can't see the disk now.... I dont know if the data got erased or if its still there. Do you have any suggestions?
thanks

[gogalthorp]

If you selected to use the entire disk I'm afraid it is all gone. If not and the partition the data is on is still there it should be recoverable.

[jptjptjpt]

I didn't say to use the whole disk when asked, but I cant see the files that were there so I'm afraid the setup program did just that. I'm sure it was a pilot error -- a costly pilot error. If the disk wasn't erased can SUSE see those files?
thanks for the reply
j

[devils casper]

If the disk wasn't erased can SUSE see those files?

Yes.

Boot up SuSe and Open Terminal/Konsole. Execute this

su
fdisk -l

post output here.

[jptjptjpt]

Disk /dev/hda: 19.2GB 19259154432 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track , 2487 cylinders
units = cylinders of 15120 x 512 = 7741440 bytes

device boot start end blocks id
/dev/hda1 * 1 1990 15044368+ c w95 (LBA)
/dev/hda2 1991 2487 3757320 f w95 (LBA)
/dev/hda5 1991 2487 3757288+ b w95

Disk /dev/hdb: 41.1GB 41110142976 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track , 4998 cylinders
units = cylinders of 16065 x 512 = 8225280 bytes

device boot start end blocks id
/dev/hdb1 1 73 586341 82 linux swap/ solaris
/dev/hdb2 74 2046 15848122+ 83 linux
/dev/hdb3 2047 4998 23711940 83 linux

[devils casper]

Log in as root and execute this

cd /media
mkdir hda1 hda5
mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /media/hda1 -o defaults,umask=0
mount -t vfat /dev/hda5 /media/hda5 -o defaults,umask=0

Check /media/hda1 and hda5 folders.

[gogalthorp]

If the files you wanted were on the 40 gig drive I'm afraid there gone. nothing nut Linux there. My guess is that you did not resize the existing DOS partition on the 40 gig before installing. Thus Suse had no place to go but to wipe the existing partitionto give room to install itself.

[jptjptjpt]

thanks for your help.
I did what you suggested
hda1 and hda5 contains windows type stuff... not the goodies I had on
my 40 gig drive....

[devils casper]

If the files you wanted were on the 40 gig drive I'm afraid there gone. nothing nut Linux there. My guess is that you did not resize the existing DOS partition on the 40 gig before installing. Thus Suse had no place to go but to wipe the existing partitionto give room to install itself.

ooops ! I didn't read first post correctly.

hda1 and hda5 contains windows type stuff... not the goodies I had on
my 40 gig drive....

There isn't any NTFS/FAT32 partition in 40GB Hard Disk. SuSe Installer has repartitioned/formatted it and all data is gone now. There is no way to recover data now.

[Malachi151]

I know this is too little too late, but hopefully this will be a lesson learned.

External hard drives are so cheap these days, go buy at least an 80 gig external hard drive (preferably 200+ gig) and copy all your files to it every night.

Most external drives now come with their won proprietary backup software that will schedule this for you. If not, there are free options on the internet, and if you really want to you can use a program like Norton Ghost.

But for about $60 to $100 you can easily setup a very good backup system these days. My computer just went down a few days ago and I was able to simply access all my data from my laptop and had no problems.