
The partition was mounted and easily accessible, but not bootable, maybe because I flagged it as logical in testdisk. It worked, and I was able to navigate and restore the Windows partition, which is the one I'm interested to recover, since all my files are placed there now. I installed testdisk in the USB Live and waited the hours the deeper search needed to successfully access the deleted partitions. This basically deleted all the present partitions, which became unaccessible, both Windows and Linux.Īfter many useless tears, I put myself into learning how to recover partitions.

However, few days ago I felt that it was time to update to the newest Mint 17.1: I created a Live USB (from which I'm typing now), made a backup of my Linux files onto the partition which hosts the pre-installe Windows 8.1, and booted from the USB.įrom there I made the first big mistake: I used the option to automatically install the new Mint on top of the old one, I think it's the first one that appears in the list after the confirmation of the available space and the internet connection. It's years that I'm used to working on a dual-boot system, and I have always been able to install previous versions of Linux Mint alongside with the pre-installed Windows with few issues. I'll try to explain the situation I found myself in after a series of errors while installing Linux Mint 17.1.

Just let me know what I need to explain better. If you want to play it safe you should have a local backup, and an offsite backup.Hello everybody, first post so excuse for any misnaming and missing information. It really depends on how mission critical your data is to you. I really should have another copy somewhere else but I’m not as concerned about my data. I use a NAS with mirroring for redundancy. WD has the easiest RMA procedure IMO, while HGST has the better warranty IIRC.Īs far as backup plan. Anecdotally I have had to RMA WD and HGST drives. I wouldnt hesitate to get a WD drive simply because they are cheap and historically work well. They will walk you through step by step, just follow the instructions and we can help fill in the gaps if there are any issues.Īs far as drives go I think HGST is still king for drive life but any of them are pretty good options. You will need to use the terminal in linux to do this but dont worry about your skill as there are tons of tutorials out there for this exact thing. Either one should be able to get you going again. I have used photorec in the past with success, theres also testdisk as well. I use mint as my go to but any distro should work fine. If you cant manage to get the files off with that program, I highly recommend you use a linux live USB as & suggests.
