Need Installation Help !

[LucidLynx]

Hello,

I have no previous experience of using
Ubuntu at all (Absolute noob). I need help to resolve an issue with my
installation of Ubuntu. Will be glad if anyone could help me out here.

Recently, I decided to have my laptop with dual boot. Already having
Win7, I tried installing Ubuntu on another partition. While
installation was in progress, during the step where we manually choose
partitions to install ubuntu on, I was asked to provide a swap area
for ease of operation. I provided another active partition for this
supposing that this "swap area" is needed only during the
installation. Unfortunately, as I found out later that this makes that
important active partition to be unavailable to work upon both in
windows as well as Ubuntu. I need to use this partition again.

I tried the "disc utility" in System--->Administration section to
change the partition type to "hpfs/ntfs". After a longtime it showed
me error (Unable to perform the operation). What could have gone
wrong ?

I absolutely need that drive back, as it contains valuable media
files. I hope those are safe even after all this mess.

Regards

[nujinini]

Hi & Welcome to the Forums!

Boot using the Live CD of Ubuntu. Then execute in terminal

$sudo fdisk -l

$sudo df -h

And post the outputs here. We can start from there. Thanks!

[petern]

Do not panic!

If you boot into the live cd again, you should be able to access the Windoze partition. Then you can use, say, a usb key to copy your files onto.

You should probably do this before fiddling with anything else.

[LucidLynx]

Hi & Welcome to the Forums!

Boot using the Live CD of Ubuntu. Then execute in terminal

$sudo fdisk -l

$sudo df -h

And post the outputs here. We can start from there. Thanks!

Here is the output :

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x38000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 22 176683+ de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 * 23 1312 10360832 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 1312 14367 104857600 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 14367 53473 314123597 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 14367 20741 51200000 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 20741 31427 85832436 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda7 39863 53473 109321548 82 Linux swap / Solaris


ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
aufs 1.9G 34M 1.9G 2% /
none 1.9G 328K 1.9G 1% /dev
/dev/sr0 687M 687M 0 100% /cdrom
/dev/loop0 655M 655M 0 100% /rofs
none 1.9G 100K 1.9G 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 1.9G 12K 1.9G 1% /tmp
none 1.9G 80K 1.9G 1% /var/run
none 1.9G 4.0K 1.9G 1% /var/lock
none 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /lib/init/rw


What next ?

[LucidLynx]

Do not panic!

Yes, I have learnt that by experience And I have faith in guys like you !

If you boot into the live cd again, you should be able to access the Windoze partition. Then you can use, say, a usb key to copy your files onto.

You should probably do this before fiddling with anything else.

I can still access windows partition, since I did not overwrite anything while installing Ubuntu. I just happened to choose another windows partition in use for "Swap Area" for linux. Do you think those files can still be safe and can be recovered ?

Thanks

[nujinini]

Do you think those files can still be safe and can be recovered?

Now that you have accessed your HD using live CD of Ubuntu, you might want to just make a back-up of all important files as petern suggested.

If you boot into the live cd again, you should be able to access the Windoze partition. Then you can use, say, a usb key to copy your files onto.

You should probably do this before fiddling with anything else.

I just happened to choose another windows partition in use for "Swap Area" for linux. Do you think those files can still be safe and can be recovered ?

If I may clarify, the files you are talking above are the files that you accidentally overwritten with SWAP?

[LucidLynx]

Now that you have accessed your HD using live CD of Ubuntu, you might want to just make a back-up of all important files as petern suggested.

Whew, w8 a minute, by that I meant, I can access the windows 7 installation partition. I still cannot access the partition which was chosen for "swap". Thats what I am talking about.. !!
And as far as the windows 7 partition is concerned, thats just fine. I can access everything in windows partitions.

If I may clarify, the files you are talking above are the files that you accidentally overwritten with SWAP?

/dev/sda3 : this is my win7 installation drive
/dev/sda5 : this is where i installed linux
/dev/sda6: this is another logical partition
/dev/sda7: this is the partition that i provided for swap area, and the one that I want restored with its files !!!

Have the files been overwritten...I don't know ...If its not been overwritten, Is it possible to secure all that data safely ?

What deductions could you make from the output of those commands ?


Thanks

[nujinini]

/dev/sda7: this is the partition that i provided for swap area, and the one that I want restored with its files !!!

Have the files been overwritten...I don't know ...If its not been overwritten, Is it possible to secure all that data safely ?

Uh oh....

That doesn't sound good from my end.

Once you've overwritten them their gone. BUT, you might want to try to recover these files and hope for the best as you do. Have you tried testdisk and photorec? They are both available in Parted Magic. I have tried it before to recover some files from even a reformatted HD. But then again, just some files. Mostly Photos. Hope it works for you too.

I hope the gurus can also share their wisdom regarding your case.

[LucidLynx]

Uh oh....

That doesn't sound good from my end.

Once you've overwritten them their gone. BUT, you might want to try to recover these files and hope for the best as you do. Have you tried testdisk and photorec? They are both available in Parted Magic. I have tried it before to recover some files from even a reformatted HD. Hope it work for you too.

I hope the gurus can also share their wisdom regarding your case.

Oh I c . Well, I haven't tried anything apart from disc utility. So I'll try the ones u've mentioned, but anyway bottomline is I cannot get it back. My Bad.
I'll come back with the results in a couple of hours ! Btw what is PXE (its mentioned on the url u've given) ?

[nujinini]

I think it has something to do with booting from a network?

I just saw it here.

Hoping for the best.