[SOLVED] Where are my files?

[graphicks]

I've been dual booting XP and Ubuntu 8.10 on a 6 yr old Gateway. Last night my wife was having her usual problem with printing a file in Ubuntu. We constantly have pages half print then stop. We have to cancel the job and reprint. I have changed drivers, etc trying to fix it, and was just about to post a thread about the problem when IT happened.

My Wife was in CUPS, canceling the hanging print job, when CUPS stopped taking her input. I got involved, closed Firefox, was then unable to get web pages to load after restarting Firefox. So, I logged her out, and tried to log back in. Neither her user name and password, nor mine, would log in. It just loops back to the login screen again. I've searched the Ubuntu forums and documentation. I've tried recovery mode. I've tried changing sessions. I am still unable to log in. I'm posting from a Live CD of Dreamlinux now.

I really don't care if I get the Ubuntu back or not, but I have some files in Ubuntu that I have not backed up recently, and want them back. I can view all my XP files from Live CD's, but only see an empty folder called "docs" in Ubuntu. Is there any way to get these files?

And remember, when I installed this Ubuntu using Wubi, I was inexperienced even more. I did not know to partition off the hard drive, so everything is together. I now know better, but it was already done, with files there, before I learned any different.

Any ideas?

[Kieren]

When you get to the Ubuntu login screen hit

ctrl+alt+F1

This will give you a command prompt, can you log in here?

If not we may be able to retrieve your files by mounting your hard drive to your live CD session. Can you post the output of:

ls /dev/disk/by-id

[graphicks]

The hard drive mount is no problem with the Live CD's, but I can't see any files in sda1/Ubuntu/docs. The directory looks empty. I don't know where the files are. I've looked other places as well, with no luck.
Output of ls /dev/disk/by-id:
ata-WDC_WD600BB-53CAA1_WD-WMA8F1348526
ata-WDC_WD600BB-53CAA1_WD-WMA8F1348526-part1

[Kieren]

Okay, try mounting ata-WDC_WD600BB-53CAA1_WD-WMA8F1348526-part1 to /mnt with the following command:

sudo mount /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD600BB-53CAA1_WD-WMA8F1348526-part1 /mnt

Now can you see your files with:

ls /mnt

?

[graphicks]

Thanks for taking the time to help. Here's the terminal with those commands:

dreamer@DL:~$ sudo mount /dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD600BB-53CAA1_WD-WMA8F1348526-part1 /mnt
mount: /dev/hda1 already mounted or /mnt busy
mount: according to mtab, /dev/hda1 is mounted on /mnt/hda1
dreamer@DL:~$ ls /mnt
Network hda1
dreamer@DL:~$

[Kieren]

Okay, looks like it is already mounted. Are your files in /mnt/hda1?

ls /mnt/hda1

[graphicks]

No. I can see all the files for XP. I can see a 'folder' named Ubuntu. Inside Ubuntu directory, there are some files and directories. One of the directories is called "docs". Inside "docs" I see nothing. I have also made sure that I am viewing hidden files. Still nothing.
As far as the other files and directories in "Ubuntu", they are all system files.
I have to mention that this problem of not seeing the files is not new. Anytime I have used a Live CD (pretty often), I notice the same thing. I can always see XP files and documents, but never any from Ubuntu.
I'm out of ideas. That's why I posted the thread. I'm about to think it is a lost cause. But, where did Ubuntu put the files I saved?

[graphicks]

I also went back to Ubuntu and tried to log in from the command line as you suggested earlier. When I did that, I got the same result. The system seemed to take my name and password, but gave another login prompt. If I typed an incorrect name and/or password, it would give that indication. When I used the correct info, there was no message, just another login prompt.

[devils casper]

Post the output of df -h and fdisk -l commands here.

sudo fdisk -l
df -h

* Its small L in fdisk -l.

[graphicks]

Here it is (and thanks for helping)

dreamer@DL:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7297 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe25de25d

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 7297 58613121 7 HPFS/NTFS
dreamer@DL:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tmpfs 252M 0 252M 0% /lib/init/rw
udev 10M 640K 9.4M 7% /dev
tmpfs 252M 4.0K 252M 1% /dev/shm
rootfs 252M 15M 237M 6% /
/dev/hdc 696M 696M 0 100% /initrd/.live
tmpfs 252M 15M 237M 6% /initrd/.dynamic
/dev/hda1 56G 39G 18G 69% /mnt/hda1
dreamer@DL:~$