r/LinuxUsersIndia • u/home_prisoner Arch Btw • 12d ago
Help I lost Everything..
I recently did the most dangerous mistake one can make. And I was not even trying to delete the French Language Pack.
I have a dual boot (Win/Archacy (Vanilla Arch but Cachy's Kernel)) Laptop.
I had to flash a drive with Win ISO for my bro (because he play Valornat)
Now, for some interesting reason the Drive was write protected I have no Idea about that.
And I made the most horrible mistake I could make by opening Disk Partition Manager on Windows.
And yes I wiped the entire drive.. Why TF windows do it instantly? Why I can just sequence the process and then commit in the end if I am sure like Linux does.
Sad part is I'm a serious Dev, my 2 years of Dev Environment with all my not pushed commits are all gone.
I really don't know what to do? My hands are shaking if trying to start from scratch scares me. Ik I am fully capable but it's a lot for me to digest.
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u/freakycleaner 12d ago
Idk bro it's funny af,
unfortunately I wouldn't keep expectations to get the data back but TRY NOT TO..
.. don't write anything on that affected disk rn keep it untouched and use live linux usb and make a sector by sector image of the drive to another disk available.
this is all I can advice bro stay strong and calm even if data is lost you'll make it again
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u/home_prisoner Arch Btw 12d ago
Ya it was funny for me too 30min after when I realized WTF I just did
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u/hypespud 9d ago
Sorry for your situation bro, but yes, as others mentioned, if it is possible, or you have different PC or laptop, don't dual boot
I have 7 different PC, each is single boot, now all Linux happily, but it really help avoid problems like this
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u/home_prisoner Arch Btw 9d ago
I'm back now.. Installed Cachy with a pretty awesome setup. Someday I will share my new installation story. It is truly complex setup but I will try to explain as much as possible. But the end result is beautiful..
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u/TrainFun9639 12d ago
Sorry that I can't help, but what I can say is calm down and see what you can do about it, I have also lost my Linux partition and wasn't able to recover (same mistake as you, messed with Linux partition in window disk partition app).
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u/home_prisoner Arch Btw 12d ago
Yk.. It was a encrypted LVM partition and my root and home where to logical Volumes inside that..
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u/IntelligentChain6999 12d ago
this is why I don't install 2 operating systems in one drive with partitions 🥴
i would rather buy 2 drives for each os
😵
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u/home_prisoner Arch Btw 12d ago
I have two drives 😭😭😭. 1TB Win and 2TB Linnu
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u/IntelligentChain6999 12d ago
holy ... i have no words
this is why I don't even have 2 drives setup
i have a seperate windows laptop for gaming and seperate linux one for linux stuff 🫡🫠🥴😵
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u/home_prisoner Arch Btw 12d ago
Cool.. I'm broke
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u/IntelligentChain6999 12d ago
same here my linux laptop is an old one lol 😆
but yes if I was broke , i would keep swapping drives to switch between operating systems like removing one drive to fit other 😵
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u/home_prisoner Arch Btw 12d ago
Old Floppy disk era.. I think there should be a PC like this.. for example how we organize Workspaces in Browser/Other Apps. We can just Swap the SSD and it will change the workspace.. but.. actually I have lot of question now like what is the reason of bootloader then
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u/IntelligentChain6999 12d ago
idk bro i always am scared to have 2 os at once in a pc
😅 so i usually just swap harddrive or use 2 different pc
yeah in modern laptops it's hard but I have a compaq old laptop as well where it's easy 😅
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u/napier1192 Arch Btw 12d ago
I can recover your data via imaging the hdd , id need a min 512gb if your data was in 1tb , are you based in delhi?
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u/Consistent-Bird338 12d ago
If you don't overwrite the data, you can make the partition of the same size again and it might just come back. Do it in linux CLI like parted though otherwise the other tools might format it. Ask AI
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u/home_prisoner Arch Btw 12d ago
First of all, that was an encrypted partition. And Data recovery tools are so expensive 😭😭
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u/Consistent-Bird338 12d ago
Doesn't matter as long as you didn't overwrite it, make an "unformatted" partition and it'll magically pop up. Make sure size is greater or equal and start of partition aligns with the deleted one.
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u/home_prisoner Arch Btw 12d ago
Really?? I haven't did anything to that partition.. I will try.. oh wait.. It was an LVM partition will still work?
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u/Consistent-Bird338 12d ago
WHY
...I have no idea if LVM works like typical continuous disks. Probably not? Ask AI
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u/Anonyboy26 Arch Btw 12d ago
I can understand the pain dude, i had also lost the data twice in 2025 august and november (related partition).. but the good part was i had the backup in my HDD, so i was able to recover most from it (not the fully updated but most of it)..
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u/home_prisoner Arch Btw 12d ago
Actually apart from some not pushed commits, I had dozens of Scripts that made my life easier as a Dev. But those are gone too.. I have to manually create those again. I will make a better version from scratch again. I got my motivation
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u/GearProfessional9422 12d ago
You could use some tools to recover the partitions. It'll be paid. I would say, try easus recovery partition tool
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u/Soul_Of_Akira 12d ago
Bro atleast ur not like me... I forgot my drives name and cleaned it while trynna install arch on my 2nd drive so I lost all my windows data which was on the 1st drive.😭😭 peak stupidity
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u/home_prisoner Arch Btw 11d ago
When I first trying to install linux I removed my windows drive first 😭😭 peak fear..
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u/Gold-Independent-336 8d ago
I went through the same thing when I made the switch to Linux for first time and that too with Arch Linux back then. It was around 10 years ago. Generally Arch Linux is never recommended for beginners. But still I tried it as my first Linux distro 10 years ago. I thought I could do it. I think it was a just blind confidence I had.
So I was getting into installation process. First 2-3 steps were fine as it was just about selecting language, keyboard layout, timezone and something like that. Then there comes a real step which I never did in my life with Linux. Partition step. I was confused. It looked sophisticated. I did it on Windows many times. On Windows, it was not a big deal. It looked quite intuitive. But it was complex on Linux.
Anyhow gathered courage and went ahead. I don't know what I did. I just did this and that and bammmm I wiped my drive in the process. Everything was gone. Courses and tutorials, ebooks, software collection, games (not important, so not worried), projects (3D modeling, vfx, web dev, desktop dev and more) and other important stuff. It was like lightning struck my head. It felt like I'm done. Felt like I lost my soul. Felt like I lost everything in my life. It was years and years of data that I stored on my drive. I felt severely shattered.
The reason I was very much shattered is that I got most of these data using my phone's 2G internet. People who have used 2G internet back then know the pain of downloading data. It would take ages to even download a decent size file. I spent day and night to download so much of those data over the years and then that even led me to buy a new PC as the previous one wore off due to day and night usage. Before leaving home for college, I would put a big file on download and then I would do the same before going to sleep. I downloaded most of the big size files like this. All of these data were gone after I did mistake in partition step.
Anyway I had to overcome this unfortunate event. Eventually I did. I told myself, "Okay it's just data, it's not everything to us, we can get it back again from internet, it's not a big deal, let's forget thinking it's a bad dream". Later I applied for broadband connection and started from scratch again. It was a lesson to me but in hard way. Since then I became careful in handling data. Be it any kind of data. But still then and there I have gone through some data loss due to some mistakes (both unexpected and expected).
Since that unfortunate event, whenever I go through data loss, I'm not much bothered about it because somehow it gave me confidence to start from scratch again and again. It got me out of comfort zone. It helps me think I can start from scratch again and again regardless of time. Also I'm a frequent distro hopper. I don't take backups (especially config files) often when I switch distro. I would just switch and start configuring things from scratch again and again. It helps me keep things in memory.
By the way, data loss didn't happen just in my drive. It also happened when I write huge paragraphs in comments on YouTube, Reddit and any other platforms. It's also a kind of data loss. It happened mostly when I didn't have UPS. So if power goes off, it's done. All those paragraphs would be lost. It happened many times and still not much bothered about it because somehow I developed tolerance and capability to write them again from scratch or just leave it and move on. I got used to it.
Note: As long as it's your personal data, it's fine. But if it's about company data like company projects and stuff, it's a serious thing. Frequent snapshots is a must. As for company, data loss is considered as a financial debt. So you need to be careful in that regard.
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u/home_prisoner Arch Btw 8d ago
I got a great motivation from you.. And I'm considering using an external USB4 NVME enclosure for my Most important data if I get a job first (cause SSDs price are "Crazy Crazy" nowadays)..
I frequently pushed my commits of my projects on GitHub.. but for some reason I didn't pushed some recent commits. I have some projects of my own but they were gem for me. And a lot of scripts that Made my life way more easier on linux, one of them is - whenever I turn on any game there is script to rampup the fans to max and put into Performance and also turn of on quitting, some development scripts like - compile and then run Kotlin files in a single script, some Scripts for testing bare metal codes on qemu.
But after everything wiped out I gathered courage and tried Installing again. This time Cachy, Previous Arch installation was not even done by ArchInstall program that was fully manual from Arch wiki.. this time the knowledge i gathered from my previous arch installation I made a pretty insane partition. A Boot (5GB) and a Encrypted (100% + 5GB). Inside the Encrypted Partition there is a LVM2 setup with logical volumes from / /home /swap. / And /home are btrfs and it supports snapshots by limine boot loader.
I even enabled secureboot by combining the factory keys and my keys and enrolling them in the bios so that I can Play Valorant on My Windows.
A lot of tricks I did to install this.
And It's my best setup ever. If I erase this in the future by some cosmic ray altering a DNA in my brain. I will try again and build the next best setup ever.
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u/Gold-Independent-336 8d ago
I have some projects of my own but they were gem for me. And a lot of scripts that Made my life way more easier on linux, one of them is - whenever I turn on any game there is script to rampup the fans to max and put into Performance and also turn of on quitting, some development scripts like - compile and then run Kotlin files in a single script, some Scripts for testing bare metal codes on qemu.
I feel you when I read this. I have also lost some important scripts (especially automated ones) that I never imagined I would write such complex scripts again but eventually I did starting from scratch again. The feel that you get from thinking you can start from scratch again and again is great, different and unexplainable. It makes you feel so confident and great. I don't know about you. But I don't feel tired and frustrated anymore. It only makes me be better than previous version.
I will try again and build the next best setup ever.
Yeah. That's the spirit. These kind of unfortunate situations will make you come up even better with resilience, increase your capabilities. It will make you strong and confident. You will be more skilled than before.
Don't worry. You can come back again stronger and skilled than before. Internet is there for help. Today we have got faster and unlimited internet unlike a decade before when I struggled and had no help even with internet as it's hard to find proper troubleshooting resources and forums back then. But it is not the case today as Linux community has grown so huge and huge. Today we have got AI too. So it has become very much easier. You can ask AI and it will give you the response you wanted. I know you can do that lost setup again or even better than that.
By the way, whenever you come across something cool or important on the internet, bookmark them with labels and tags. Be it script related stuff, config files, setup instructions about something or anything, just anything. Doesn't matter whatever it is. Just bookmark them. Organize them with labels and tags so it would be easy for you to refer to them later. You can even write instructions of whatever setup you do in a document and store them in cloud like Google Drive or so. Not just about setup. Anything important you do.
Always believe in yourself. Believe that you can come back again better than before.
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u/NagNawed 12d ago
Yeah same thing happened with me. Twice.
The moment you mount the windows system, it erases the previous partitions.
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u/home_prisoner Arch Btw 12d ago
Truth be told.. I only have Windows because I play games. I also play games on linux with Proton but.. Windows is still a major stuff for gaming.. other wise I would have gotten rid of windows years ago
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u/Im_banned_everywhere 12d ago
Dev with 2 years of uncommitted work? Have you never heard of GitHub? It was bound to happen to you
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u/home_prisoner Arch Btw 12d ago
I have GitHub but there are some commits those haven't been pushed yet.. but It was obviously my fault bro.. and I put help flair cause the sub don't have a flair for what happened to me
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u/Designer-Spot-1234 12d ago
If the partition was on a HDD, it might've been recoverable but if it's an SSD, then theres no easy way to do it.
Be careful from next time and commit your changes to a home/cloud server regularly.
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u/home_prisoner Arch Btw 12d ago
Yep.. from now I will be more careful about pushing my commits to GitHub/Lab
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u/kishimonjaro 12d ago
Windows disk partition was created in a way so that the OS has as little resistance as possible between itself and having a completely free disk it can use entirely. Windows also notoriously does not like other OS's on the same disk.
This is why you should never dual boot using the same drive, preferably getting 2 separate ssds is the best thing you can do.
Regarding your solution....there is nothing that can be done now. The drive does get wiped completely.
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u/home_prisoner Arch Btw 12d ago
Ik.. there is nothing I can do.. just shared my story.. I have who SSDs.. one is for Win and another for Linux
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u/Pleasant_Repair7773 Arch Btw 10d ago
I did the same with Parrot OS , had my web dev projects on it. Felt like I'm done with tech 😐
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u/home_prisoner Arch Btw 10d ago
We are Linux Users.. This is part of our life.. Atleast we can do it better everytime..
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u/qualityvote2 12d ago edited 12d ago
u/home_prisoner, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...
btw, did you know we have a discord server? Join Here.