I recently installed Ubuntu (14.04 LTS) on my laptop. I had a single SSD with windows 7 installed on it and decided to install Ubuntu in dual boot. From windows, I created 2 other partitions (15Gb) and 2(Gb) for Ubuntu and swap space, respectively. I was left with 4 partitions:
- A ~200 Gb one with Windows 7 (#1)
- A very small one (100Mb) related to Windows I guess (#2)
- An empty 15 Gb one for Ubuntu (#3)
- An empty 2 Gb one for swap space (#4)
I burned Ubuntu on a USB-stick and booted on it from BIOS (UEFI version 2.17). I then started to install Ubuntu. During installation, I selected "install Ubuntu along-side Windows 7". And I clicked on the "partition options". Which lead me to the partition screen, aka "Where I screwed up screen", which looks like this.
In this screen , I selected #3 for my root directory (with ext4 file system). I selected #4 for swap space. And I unselected #1 (the one with windows 7) by clicking on the "-" button when the partition was selected. Once unselected, the space was labelled as "free space", biiiig mistake.
Then I proceeded with the installation. Now, in the BIOS, when I select the device I want to boot on, the BIOS proposes me only one option (Ubuntu on my SSD), when I would like to see 2 of them (one for each OS).
I tried to boot on the USB-stick to see what happens. During installation, the #1 partition is not present anymore and I can only "install Ubuntu along-side Ubuntu".
If I run lsblk, I can see only 3 partitions (Ubuntu - 15 Gb, swap partion - 2 Gb and a small one - 1 Kb).
Now given this situation, I would like to know if the "lost" partition can be recovered ? I guess that the master boot record was changed and windows address was replaced by Ubuntu's address. But does it mean that the partition with Windows was totally erased ? Or that it's just not referenced anymore ?
I would like to try to add the lost partition to my partition table. On Ubuntu website, I found a page (help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery) that explains how to do it ? Should I give it a try ?
Well that's a lot of questions, I would be glad to hear any piece of advice from you !
Thank you very much
------ First EDIT --------
As suggested I ran TestDisk. Here are the first information that I gathered :
Disk /dev/sda - 256 GB / 238 GiB - CHS 31130 255 63 Current partition structure:
Partition Start End Size in sectors
3 E extended LBA 29058 101 34 29307 191 39 4005861
4 * Linux 29307 192 6 31130 158 4 29284352
5 L Linux Swap 29058 101 36 29307 191 39 4005859
It corresponds to my #3 and #4 partitions (given sectors of 512 Bytes). But I don't get why two of them overlap ? What is extended LBA ?
Then I launched a "quick search" and got those results :
Quick search
Disk /dev/sda - 256 GB / 238 GiB - CHS 31130 255 63
Partition Start End Size in sectors
HPFS - NTFS 0 32 33 12 223 19 204800 [System Reserved]
HPFS - NTFS 12 223 20 29058 69 3 466614272 (my "lost" partition" !)
HPFS - NTFS 29058 101 36 29307 192 5 4005888
Linux 29307 192 6 31130 158 4 29284352
Here it is ! The second partition is a 238 Gb partition which contains the windows installation. I guess that the first one contains the GUID partition table ?
In an attempt to list the directories and files in the partition I pressed "p". Then TestDisk crashed. Should I run Linux from my USB-stick instead of my actual SDD to do that ?
In any case, now I would like to tell TestDisk to add the "lost" partition to that partition table. I'm not sure how to do this and don't want to mess up again ! Could anyone help me ?
-------------EDIT 2---------------
I did the next step in Testdisk (selected the partition and pressed "continue"). It proposed me a deeper search, which I did. The results are the following :
Disk /dev/sda - 256 GB / 238 GiB - CHS 31130 255 63
Partition Start End Size in sectors
> HPFS - NTFS 0 32 33 12 223 19 204800 [System Reserved]
HPFS - NTFS 12 223 19 25 159 5 204800
HPFS - NTFS 12 223 20 29058 69 3 466614272
HPFS - NTFS 12 223 20 31130 190 36 499908608
Linux 1318 42 5 1970 222 44 10485760
Linux 8911 129 51 9564 55 27 10485760
Linux 8923 158 4 9576 83 43 10485760
Linux 8948 89 38 9601 15 14 10485760
Linux 10607 5 23 11259 185 62 10485760
Linux 10640 74 59 11293 0 35 10485760
Linux 27363 3 33 29712 194 50 37748736
Linux 27616 49 18 29965 240 35 37748736
Linux 27635 80 30 29985 16 47 37748736
Linux 27636 118 3 29986 54 20 37748736
Linux 27639 35 45 29988 226 62 37748736
Linux 27642 115 58 29992 52 12 37748736
Linux 27663 222 16 30013 158 33 37748736
Linux Swap 29058 101 36 29307 192 5 4005888
HPFS - NTFS 29058 101 36 29307 192 5 4005888
HPFS - NTFS 29058 101 36 29307 192 5 4005888
Linux 29307 192 6 31130 158 4 29284352
Structure: Ok. Use Up/Down Arrow keys to select partition.
Use Left/Right Arrow keys to CHANGE partition characteristics:
*=Primary bootable P=Primary L=Logical E=Extended D=Deleted
Keys A: add partition, L: load backup, T: change type, P: list files,
Enter: to continue
NTFS, blocksize=4096, 104 MB / 100 MiB
It found several Linux partitions that overlap and I'm really not sure what they are. My guess would be that they come from some Virtual machine images that I had downloaded. Whatever, the only partition that I'm interested in is the third one (238 Gb).
If I press continue again I get a message like "no partition found" and it goes back to the menu.
I tried with gparted but it was taking forever... strange.
pcrashed the program. What you are meant to do at this point is to pressEnterand to go to the next step. What the guide says there is that "When all partitions are available and data correctly listed, you should go to the menu Write to save the partition structure. The menu Extd Part gives you the opportunity to decide if the extended partition will use all available disk space or only the required (minimal) space", so check CAREFULLY if EVERYTHING it's present and match, if you're not sure post the output of this last step along with a screenshot ofgparted