Hello everyone, today I tried to make a Windows hard drive visible to Linux (in my case Manjaro), I did it exactly according to this guide (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EsslxVO2hs&t=277s) and used KDE partition management to create a new partition on an existing disk that had 800 gigabytes of important information. As a result of changing the file system on the disk from NTFS to BTRFS, I don’t think I understood how I defragmented my disk. Does KDE partition management really delete all data when adding a partition and I need to run and recover data with third-party applications, or are the files actually fine and I need to change the file system back? Are there ways to solve the problem in KDE partition management itself?
first of all welcome… sorry about your data loss.
i would generally only touch an ntfs partition from within windows, just to be on the safe side, but any partition tool will wipe the data if you change the file system format (you are essentially reformatting the partition).
there may be recoverable data if you disconnect the drive and don’t do any further work in there… i’m no expert on these tools.
btw, for future reference, linux (esp KDE versions) can read and write to windows ntfs file systems just fine without any work on your part.
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With one exception - using Testdisk to read the disk surface and find what’s there - for recovery or undeletion. If you shut down disk operations, you can partially or fully recover files and recover deleted partitions.
Otherwise, always windows - otherwise you end up with niggly problems and dirty bits.
I used Testdisk to scan and recover a 2TB HDD maybe ten years ago, it had to be left running overnight… it recovered many images (but not their filenames) of which many (probably around 600 out of 3000 images) had varying degrees of corruption depending on how much of the original had been overwritten.
Hi - if it’s possible, could you share a screenshot of what Partition Manager shows for the disk you’re working on? I think that would be helpful for folks in understanding your current situation and the best next steps.
I ask that as the video that was linked does pretty directly show creating a new partition out of unassigned space on a drive, not editing an existing one. There might be some confusion about what actions here happened on the entire disk, vs. what actions were taken on a specific filesystem - a single physical disk can have multiple filesystems, if it has multiple partitions.
If all that happened was that unassigned space was assigned to a partition and given a filesystem, as was shown in the video, that generally should not impact existing data on a different partition. If an existing filesystem was deleted to make room for that new one, then yes, you’re likely looking at some sort of advanced data recovery method.
Sure, here’s a screenshot from the program. My disk was originally a disk without partitions in the list, apparently when I created a new one, the old one was overwritten
yes, that disk now has a single partition on it that occupies the entire disk so whatever was there is gone as as far as normal business goes.
you are now firmly in data recovery territory and the less you do with that disk the better your chances of recovery.
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Ok, thanks for the clarification, I hope in the future KDE partition management will add a clearer warning about the complete loss of information on the disk