Need urgent help with recovering data!!

[PsychoRebellious]

This is what happened in short. I had a windows8, tried installing UBUNTU and was suppposed to replace the windows with ubuntu but it deleted all partitions and installed ubuntu on some newly created partition! Everything, everything that I had there is gone all the partitions and the data in that hard disk was really really important it was the 320gb harddisk in my laptop with all our family pictures, ebooks i had collected through out the years and projects Ive been working on.
Ive pulled out the harddisk from the laptop and have it plugged in a desktop computer with win 8 installed on it. Currently im trying out TESTDISK and EASEUS data recovery to look for data! the TESTDISK on analyzing only shows me the newly created partitions created by ubuntu installation. The other tool EASUS is showing the data which was in C(windows) drive and it will take 45 minutes for it to list other data but it's a trial version so I'm really hoping it doesn't do someting like
"Purchaces to recover and continue" in the end. I am so urgently in need of help. The partitions are gone and now there's only this linux partition newly created. Anybody, anybody providing assistance or help with recovering my data will be hihgly appreciate. I am so freaked out. I would personally give you a blowjob if you help me with this (jk but Ill realyl be thankful)

[Kulverstukas]

That, kids, is why you do this kinda shit in a VM before doing it for the first time on your actual machine kek. Also I know the feel, been there, done that. Since that faithful day, I keep my stacks of data on external drive, and do regular backups of the files I often use and update, also a clone of the system.

Anyway, you could try summadees tools https://evilzone.org/security-tools/icare-data-recovery/ if you'll use iCare, there is an option to recover a lost partition. However Ubuntu probably also formatted it and merged free space into one partition as well, in which case it'll be hard to recover anything structured, you will most likely get an unstructured heap of files without names, but if the lost partition option won't help, use the Advanced deep scan option, in which case you will get some files, but as I said - without names.
Try other tools in that thread as well, maybe they'll give better results. And ofc don't recover to the same drive

[PsychoRebellious]

That, kids, is why you do this kinda shit in a VM before doing it for the first time on your actual machine kek. Also I know the feel, been there, done that. Since that faithful day, I keep my stacks of data on external drive, and do regular backups of the files I often use and update, also a clone of the system.

Anyway, you could try summadees tools https://evilzone.org/security-tools/icare-data-recovery/ if you'll use iCare, there is an option to recover a lost partition. However Ubuntu probably also formatted it and merged free space into one partition as well, in which case it'll be hard to recover anything structured, you will most likely get an unstructured heap of files without names, but if the lost partition option won't help, use the Advanced deep scan option, in which case you will get some files, but as I said - without names.
Try other tools in that thread as well, maybe they'll give better results. And ofc don't recover to the same drive

Named or unnamed. Just some pictures I really want back, of some people very dear to me(deceased). I have saved this stuff for like 3 years and I can't believe I finally fucked up! I have downloaded the icare archive, let me see. I'll report back to u

[Kulverstukas]

Named or unnamed. Just some pictures I really want back, of some people very dear to me(deceased). I have saved this stuff for like 3 years and I can't believe I finally fucked up! I have downloaded the icare archive, let me see. I'll report back to u

Calm your tits and prepare for the worst, be a god damn man and embrace the fact that you shredded your files. With that in mind try the programs and see what comes out.

[HTH]

Ok so the good news is that your data is almost certainly recoverable. Making a new partition table and even installing ubuntu only writes to a very small amount of that 320  gb harddrive, probably like 1-2%. What you want to do is this, first, get a disk image of this harddrive, a straight up 320 gb file which will contain all yo things. On linux Id use dd for this, not sure about on windows.

Next skip the gimics and go get some real file carving tools, not saying iCare or the others wont work but a dedicated file carving tool will prob be better.  Foremost, scalpel, sleuthkit and smartcarving were all kind of a big deal a few years ago, not sure about now.

Be aware that roughly 15% - 20% of jpeg files are fragmented so only smartcarving out of those will properly restore them.

[cyberdrifter]

[0E 800]

Sounds funny, but recova recovered the same amount of files as all the paid for ones you find here:
http://data-recovery-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

As  Kulverstukas mentioned, the files were unnamed but I was able to recover images.

As HTH mentioned you should create a image of the whole hard drive before you start messing around with it, work with the image to recover files.

Turn this into a challenge if anything, your first forensics mission.

Some helpful links.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/496445/is-it-possible-to-retrieve-the-data-by-using-recuva-software

http://askubuntu.com/questions/3883/how-to-recover-deleted-files

http://askubuntu.com/questions/245987/how-can-i-recover-my-data-after-replacing-windows-with-ubuntu

[evil_genius]

Hi, I've been in a similar situation. I used R-Studio (Network Edition) with almost 90% success rate. Give it a try.

Official website: http://www.r-studio.com/