Back up your data

Urgent help needed - data retrieval - is the data gone?
Hi everyone

I was trying to install Ubuntu on the D drive of my sisters computer. However when it came to installing Ubuntu from the live CD I stupidly chose guided partition. The partition was aborted (rather late) and I know that one partition (a recovery partition) wasn't deleted.

How much data is retrievable after reformatting a drive (from NTFS to ext3)?
How can I get it back?
Do I need to go (and pay) to a data retrieval specialist?


The Hard drive contains 1 year and a half of my sisters work (doctor researching aids in Africa). It is essential that I try to get this data back...

Thanks for any help

I'll repeat the title of this post. Back up your data. Back up your data. Back up your data.

Always do a backup of important data before repartitioning. Always.

The bad news is that our friend probably overwrote large portions of the data. At least he caught the mistake later on and aborted before the entire process finished. Depending on the program that was used, the remaining data may or may not be usable: if the data was compressed (likely), the achive might not be recoverable.

Best of luck to him.

Always back up before a potentially dangerous activity.

Install SimpleBackup now.