
Maybe I should buy a new one, but I'd rather avoid doing that if possible.

I've read around that it's better to clone the disk but I have no spare disk. Probably a Recovery partition (something built-in in my Acer) Some other logical stuff I can't remember The partition structure was something like: I hope I haven't messed up the thing even worse. Probably, since now I have done another deeper search and I think I've found the right partition, this is going to change after any reboot. Number Start End Size File system Name Flags Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Or perhaps you deleted the GPT table, and are now using an Perhaps it was corrupted - possibly by a program that doesn't understand GPT However, it does not have a valid fake msdos partition table, as it should. Warning: /dev/sda contains GPT signatures, indicating that it has a GPT table. Is there any way to at least return to the previous situation, and access the files, which anyway shouldn't have been erased? I tried to run again testdisk, but it didn't behave in the same way: I couldn't find the deleted partition I restored anymore, even with the deeper search. Unfortunately all went wrong and the partition became unmountable and unreadable. Now, I had the dreadful idea to use boot-repair to fix the boot-loader, in order to boot from Windows: since all the files and folders where in place, it seemed possible. 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. Hello everybody, first post so excuse for any misnaming and missing information.
