[HELP] NTFS data recovery in Ubuntu


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The HDD in my laptop died, i have it plugged in via a USB adapter to my Ubuntu box, when i do so it automatically opens up and i can browse to the c:\documents and settings\user\my documents directory, but not past that, i don't know which tools i can use to recover my music.

Please help, 22GB of Music, 10Gb of family photos and videos are at stake.

i'm running Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 btw

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You should be able to explore and read your files without a problem, even from a GUI.

Then copy to another partition/drive/networked PC.

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I think it's hosed, i can copy the files, but it doesn't go anywhere during "File Operation" when i specifiy a location to paste the selected file(s). :(

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If you can open up the photos and such from within Ubuntu, then you can recover.

Not sure what is going on when you say that the files aren't going anywhere. Is there an error? Can you upload a picture to flickr or imageshack or such?

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"Please help, 22GB of Music, 10Gb of family photos and videos are at stake."

Dont mean to kick you while your down -- but shouldn't you have been thinking of backup long before you HDD crashed?

Unless the music was something you created it can always be gotten again that is not the issue.. What is the issue is the 10GB of photos and videos.. I cringe every time I hear of this -- WTF do people think that HDD will just run and run and run forever?

ALL HDDs fail, ALL of them!!! Sooner or latter it will fail, now hopefully you have some warning, or you will have moved on to bigger an faster drives before it happens, etc.

But you CAN NOT store files on a single HDD and not expect something like this to happen.. If your not going to backup your whole system, at least backup your family photos and videos -- these quite often are not replaceable --- You can not get those pictures of your kids first birthday back, their fist steps, first haircut, etc. etc..

People are storing thousands of images on their computers HDD, and most of them never think of what happens when the thing dies? Or maybe they get infected with something that trashes all jpgs, etc.

As mark said if you can view the images you can save them off.. But Please the next guy reading this -- if your not backing up your family photo's and videos.. Do so NOW!! don't wait, do it NOW!

Copy them to an external drive, burn them to DVD -- keep this up to date.. Better yet move these copies out of your house -- put them in your safe deposit box, store them at a family or friends house.. Or use one of the internet backup services - there are many that are FREE for a few GBs so that your photo's are backed up and at another location.

Have your photos on your HDD and a DVD are great -- but what happens if there is a fire, or say a tornado takes your house to OZ, etc.

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Hey BudMan, I know the situation you are in. I am in no different situation when it comes to family members and friends. I tell them the same thing and whether they like it or not, they must accept the losses. I tell them to create a Live account and upload to the SkyDrive for safekeeping as well as get an extra hard drive be it internal or external.

Now to the OP, press ALT + F2 and type in "gksudo nautilus" without quotes to open the root/admin file manager. Now try to copy the files to a separate hard drive or if its possible, zip them up and upload them to an online file hosting site. I recommend Windows Live SkyDrive of MediaFire.com and you can restrict them from the public since its personal stuff and well yea...

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"Please help, 22GB of Music, 10Gb of family photos and videos are at stake."

Dont mean to kick you while your down -- but shouldn't you have been thinking of backup long before you HDD crashed?

The Photos i actually backed up to a thumb drive prior to it crashing, i just remembered, along with the home videos. I've a second child now, and resources are a bit short to have purchased an external drive to back up the music and games...

Unless the music was something you created it can always be gotten again that is not the issue.. What is the issue is the 10GB of photos and videos.. I cringe every time I hear of this -- WTF do people think that HDD will just run and run and run forever?

ALL HDDs fail, ALL of them!!! Sooner or latter it will fail, now hopefully you have some warning, or you will have moved on to bigger an faster drives before it happens, etc.

No **** Sherlock

But you CAN NOT store files on a single HDD and not expect something like this to happen.. If your not going to backup your whole system, at least backup your family photos and videos -- these quite often are not replaceable --- You can not get those pictures of your kids first birthday back, their fist steps, first haircut, etc. etc..

Again, no ****.

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If you can open up the photos and such from within Ubuntu, then you can recover.

Not sure what is going on when you say that the files aren't going anywhere. Is there an error? Can you upload a picture to flickr or imageshack or such?

I can browse to "My Documents" but not past that. So i can't view the actual files needing to be recovered

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I can browse to "My Documents" but not past that. So i can't view the actual files needing to be recovered

That doesn't sound good. The file structure might be FUBARed.

Sounds like a job for photorec! It's a great (albiet, command line based) file recovery app that looks at the drive data without needing any partition or filesystem information.

It might be able to pull a few things out of the proverbial hat.

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wouldn't you need the correct ntfs permissions to view the your documents folder?

Not if you're running as root. I think root has permission to everything, regardless.

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Were you running Vista?

If so I'd suggest taking the drive to another Vista PC, when I tried recovering files off a Vista PC with Ubuntu and Knoppix I kept running into strange permissions problems where I couldn't replace files, access folders, etc.

FYI.

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"No **** Sherlock"

Glad to hear you have your photos and video's secured, but if its such a Captain Obvious type thing that you should of had your "files" backup up..

And since your clearly aware of this -- ie your "No **** Sherlock" response.. There would of been no need for your thread in the first place! 22GB of music = what 5 maybe 6 DVDs. So if you can not afford that 1TB external drive you want at the moment - what you can not afford 60 freaking cents, hey lets say you were a big spender and bought the DVDs retail so $1.20. To ensure the safety of your precious music?

Since you were clearly aware of the need of backup, and that hard drives fail -- so if your music is gone for good, and since its not something that can not be recovered like photos, it might drive my "No **** Sherlock" advice home ;)

Good luck.

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That doesn't sound good. The file structure might be FUBARed.

Sounds like a job for photorec! It's a great (albiet, command line based) file recovery app that looks at the drive data without needing any partition or filesystem information.

It might be able to pull a few things out of the proverbial hat.

How do i install it?

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