Recover linux partition after whole disk formatted?

doh

New member
Hello, I hope someone can help. I have accidentally formatted my entire SSD losing the dual boot linux and shared data partitions.

Before the accident, my laptop with 250GBSSD was previously configured as dual boot with the following partitions:

sda1: 12GB windows 7 recovery partition
sda2: 104MB system reserved
sda3: 156GB Windows 7 home premium 64bit NTFS
sda4or5: 32GB FAT32 or NTFS? shared file storage
sda4or5: 80GB (approx) linux mint 18. EXT2 or 3?

Windows 7 got BSOD booting and would not boot. It would not fix itself using system repair/restore.
I backed up all files on the windows 7 partition but not the other partitions.
I accidentally ran the system recovery tool to wipe the disk and reinstall fresh windows.
During the process the computer must restart several times but on the first restart it would not boot with error cannot find OS (due to GRUB most likely).

I have not booted from the internal drive since the accident.

I have used a live linux mint USB to boot the PC.

I have run testdisk analyse which only detects the recovery partition, the new system reserved and the new windows partition which fill the rest of the disk.

Same result from device recovery option in gparted.

I am hoping the formatting was quick format and the partial new installation of windows has only overwritten the sectors from the old windows partition.

Q1 Is my data still on the disk?

Q2 how do I search and find the old partitions?

Q3 how do I fix it so the computer knows where the partitions are and I can dual boot to my old linux partition?
 

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
doh":4w8tu4kb said:
[post]14993[/post] I am hoping the formatting was quick format and the partial new installation of windows has only overwritten the sectors from the old windows partition.

Unfortunately, you're talking about an SSD, not a HDD. Because of a technology called T.R.I.M. an SSD can nearly instantly be zeroed out and be permanently unrecoverable. If the installer sent the drive a T.R.I.M. command after doing the quick format (which I believe it does) then the data is gone.
 

doh

New member
Damn! Oh well. That's what I thought. Sorry for posting 2 threads as it didn't appear right away.

The SSD is a Crucial MX200

Is there a command or something I can execute to check if the TRIM is enabled?

Would I be able to check this by putting the SSD in an external case adn then using command prompt either from a windows or linux machine?

I guess if TRIM is on then there is no practical way to recover anything.
I guess factory modes and other recovery attempts are impossible at home?

Thanks for a great forum by the way. It is really a help for people to recover their own data or in my case know when to quit.
 

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
T.R.I.M. is always supported by the SSD. It's only a matter of whether or not the OS sends the command to trash collect the now empty pages. I belive Windows installer does do this.
 
I have meet a WD HDD also has TRIM function. USB WD10SMZW 11Y0TS0
User deleted partition. And All data gone. Kinda nightmare. I couldn't find anything in disk with my knowledge
20191010_191305.jpg
 

Blizzard

Member
DigitalVeriKurtarma":37n89m5i said:
I have meet a WD HDD also has TRIM function. USB WD10SMZW 11Y0TS0
User deleted partition. And All data gone. Kinda nightmare. I couldn't find anything in disk with my knowledge
According to Western Digital TRIM/UNMAP is supported in the external versions of their SMR drives.
 
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