Data recovery software

[Phillip McCleod]

11. testdisk/photorec from any linux live cd does the trick

though it might be awkward to learn/use if one isn't used to linux command line. i have an external drive with it preinstalled in ubuntu but any live cd/usb should work. how-to in a couple easy steps:

1) boot into linux live cd on the computer with the lost data
2) make sure you're internet connection is ok
3) open a terminal; install 'testdisk' (using aptitude, pacman, rpm, etc); type 'man testdisk' and read the docs!!
4) find your drive device (type 'ls /dev/sd*' and/or 'lsblk'); it will be one of /dev/sdX where 'X' is a letter
5) type 'sudo testdisk /dev/sdX' and follow the instructions to recover lost partition or lost files

if testdisk doesn't work, then resort to 'photorec' (it was installed at the same time as testdisk in step 3 above) to find and copy every file of specified type. usage is pretty much the same as for testdisk but read the man page!! testdisk if it works will preserve the original file structure and names, whereas photorec will give you a mountain of files to plow through one by one.