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#1 2016-08-25 09:23:35

janpansa
Member
From: South Africa
Registered: 2015-02-23
Posts: 43

Windows deleted my EXT4 partition.

Ok, so not sure where I should post this, but here goes:

I have 3 hard drives in my computer :

1 = Samsung 850 Pro SSD. (This houses my arch environment... e.g. /boot, /home and / partitions and it works well)
2 = 6TB Western Digital HDD formatted in EXT4. (This is where I keep my files e.g. anime)
3 = 1TB Seagate hard drive for Windows 10.

I never run windows and linux on the same hard drive and further, I never run windows and linux on the same time, e.g. where both hard drives are on.

So 99.9% of the time I am using arch, so the lnux SSD will be on and the Windows HDD will be off.
The other 0.1 % of the time, I need to play a game such as the new Deus Ex Mankind divided, so then I switch off my linux ssd and then turn on the windows HDD.
The 6TB ext4 drive is always just on.

So yesterday, I bought the new Deus Ex, however, the windows that was on that computer was slow, so I decided to format the drive and start from scratch. So I made sure linux drive was off, then I started the computer and booted up with the windows 10 install. On the screen where you choose which hdd to install windows on, it listed 2 hard drives. It saw the 6TB and the Windows 1TB. I chose to install Windows on the old 1TB because the 6tb ext 4 hdd has all my stuff on. After the installation was done, Windows was in fact installed onto the 1TB hdd and I could play Deus Ex, cool. Then, today, I needed to do some work in Arch, so I switched of Windows, switched the windows hdd off, turned the Arch linux SSD on and booted arch.

Arch boots up fine, I can log in, but where is my 6TB drive ?

After inspection, it looks like windows decided to add a 512mb partition without my permission onto my 6TB hdd. Why in the name of @$# would windows do that after I explicitly told windows to only use that 1TB drive. Now my 6TB shows up with that partition and 6TB unallocated space.

I'm a long time arch user and really just wanted to play that awesome new game. Is there any way I can recover the 6TB of data sad

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#2 2016-08-25 09:26:42

tpfkanep
Member
From: South Africa
Registered: 2009-12-15
Posts: 121

Re: Windows deleted my EXT4 partition.

Try testdisk

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#3 2016-08-25 10:18:47

janpansa
Member
From: South Africa
Registered: 2015-02-23
Posts: 43

Re: Windows deleted my EXT4 partition.

tpfkanep wrote:

Try testdisk

Thx, I'll try it and let you know what I find.

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#4 2016-08-25 22:59:29

jmp186
Member
Registered: 2016-08-13
Posts: 22

Re: Windows deleted my EXT4 partition.

What I would do is simply reformat the hdd to ext4. all the data rewirtten by that W partition is probably lost but the rest will be there, can anyone confirm ?

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#5 2016-08-25 23:10:21

alphaniner
Member
From: Ancapistan
Registered: 2010-07-12
Posts: 2,810

Re: Windows deleted my EXT4 partition.

Reformatting would not result in the old data being visible and would likely do more harm than good. The number one rule in situations such as this is read-only.


But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.
-Lysander Spooner

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#6 2016-08-25 23:24:01

jmp186
Member
Registered: 2016-08-13
Posts: 22

Re: Windows deleted my EXT4 partition.

It works (I did that on usb keys a dozen times) but it's indeed not the best/secure way to do things smile

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