guess wot? i destroyed my windows drive now i feel proper ****ed

[neilmaclennan]

i recently wanted to go with linux and as soon as i got comfortable with it and ****ed my win7 drive cause it irreparably ****ed up now i can't get the ubuntu to work like it was before the change over big laugh on me i feel like the brunt of a joke now i am going to end up fired because of this so big laugh guys bastards. if i'm wrong then tell me what went wrong for me you can have any and all access to my computer your need and if your are screwing me then i will burn the damn thing i have had enough

[MikeTbob]

BREATHE MAN!! *performing CPR furiously*

Calm down buddy, no one here wants to mess with you or your machine...we're here to help you, if you want panic and chaos, that's three downs down on the left.

What's the problem with your machine? Be detailed, did you change/install/nuke/delete something by accident? Do you still have the install CD/DVD?

[neilmaclennan]

Sorry I was drunk last night and went a little screwy there. Now I'm a lot more calm and hung over so I can er think more clearer. I don't know what I did to the poor windows drive I was happily deleting files and folders I don't use, I have a habit of downloading any app that looks cool and then never using it so I was spring cleaning the drive. Then my win7 OS started accessing the HDD constantly and slowing the system down to an unusable crawl, I originally thought this was due to the computer being on all night as it does that regularly with win7 or any win OS I have used. So I restarted the computer and the HDD accessing problem didn't stop and i couldn't do anything it was taking 5mins approx for anything to open even the file browser and getting the task manger to open also took forever too, and any program i opened like office would promptly crash i tried rolling back changes etc... nothing worked. So I installed Linux over the win7 drive then ran updates and halfway through it asked me to restart the computer so i did even though its progress wasn't complete. then i couldn't get the thing to boot up. so i put in the test drive i used when i was evaluating Ubuntu9 and wrote the horrid overboard message you saw. sorry once again fireball whisky and beer does not agree with my temperament. Anyway doing all that drunk was a mistake cause i forgot to make a copy of Filescavenger and I don't have a copy of my liscence key and got the program so long ago I can't remember what email i was using back then etc... so i want to install testdisk or photorec, but don't know how to install software in linux, i don't know what the commands are in terminal or if i even have to use that to do so, i also got wine to install martview pdf reader but can't find the icon to use it. Please can someone help me with this or direct me to a page where i can baby step my way through this learning Linux thing thanks

[elija]

First of all you are not alone

You typically install software through the repositories which in Ubuntu means one of the following:

Applications -> Ubuntu Software Center (probably the friendliest)
System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager

Just search for the kind of thing you want to install.

[neilmaclennan]

i know about the synaptics package manager and the software center but am at a loss when it comes to downloading a program or application and installing it from the folder itself. i have downloaded photorec and testdisk and i don't know what to do to install and then use the thing. I installed martview pdf reader with wine and can't find the icon to start using it i have no idea where it is on the disk and i can't find it in any of the drop down menus applications places system. and when i try to click on the folder icon it just installs it again i think.

[elija]

You shouldn't need a windows pdf reader as there are many native readers. In Wine, I find I have to Browse the C Drive to run software.

Now to run photorec you should extract the archive to a hard disk and using a terminal, change into the directory where you extract it and the into the linux directory. Run the command

./photorec_static

If you are looking to recover lost files it is important not to do any of this on the disk you are trying to recover.

[oz]

i have downloaded photorec and testdisk and i don't know what to do to install and then use the thing.

I think this was mentioned in your other thread that is somewhat similar to this one, but the easiest way to use TestDisk and/or PhotoRec is to run them from a liveCD such as the Parted Magic LiveCD. You can find good documentation for using each application on its respective page at the CGSecurity website.

Hope it all works out for you.

[Dapper Dan]

Sorry I was drunk last night and went a little screwy there.

Neil, sorry to hear of your trouble. If it is even a slight consolation, I've been known to engage in hammered computing a time or two myself...

[neilmaclennan]

Neil, sorry to hear of your trouble. If it is even a slight consolation, I've been known to engage in hammered computing a time or two myself...

yes it is a sad state of affairs and i stupidly formatted the drive without backing up my data recovery program filescavenger so now i er need that program to er recover that program. i have decided to just start over and plod along getting the programs i need and it will take time but this time i will be a bit more frugal in what i get cause i had tons of stuff that i never used but looked cool to have. i had so many toolbars loaded that if i had them all viewable at the same time the browser window was about a line or two. lol man i am ocd

[nujinini]

yes it is a sad state of affairs and i stupidly formatted the drive without backing up my data recovery program...

I share your pain.

I also have been guilty of frying my system in the past and have lost quite a number of data in the process. I even stupidly stopped a process in the middle since I thought it was taking a long time and after my reboot, again my system was fried, extra crispy.

Anyway, testdisk and photorec surprisingly helped me recover some of my data but what I would like to personally call to be a "blessing in disguise" is that I was able to unexpectedly recover old pictures of family vacations that I thought I forever lost since that particular HD has been reformatted and a new OS was reinstalled over it.

Hope you find a way to solve your situation, best of luck!