How fucked am I?
81: try to install arch Linux
2: realize that’s impossible without a way to lookup instructions
2: try to install arch anywhere
3: computer won’t boot
4: put arch anywhere usb stick back in, boot to shell
5: get nowhere with that
6: figure out that if I unplug usb stick right as it tries to load installer then plug it back in when it gets upset that installer will load
7: reinstall
8: get nowhere
9: install windows 10 recovery shit on usb stick
10: try to recover windows 10
11: after windows 10 recovery fails, reinstall windows 10
12: All of my shit is in windows.old
13: try to recover windows by rolling back to “before” installing windows 10 today (the only option)
14: nothing changes
15: merge windows with windows.old
16: all documents, downloads, pictures etc gone.
- 18 comments, 9 replies
- Comment
extra frustratingly, based on disk space left it seems like those files are still somewhere- just not where I can get them.
Are you sure your profile on the new windows install shared the same username as the old install? Could be your files are there and you don’t see them in docs, etc. because they’re in another profile folder.
@jbartus I think so. Same name/pw to sign in. I’m pretty drunk though (seemed like the best short-term solution). If it leads anywhere in the morning I’ll let you know.
which is why i use a data drive and never save to the default
@Cerridwyn on the plus side, all but one of my programs that I care about are on github, and most of my pictures are on google photos in case hackers want to see some birds.
Send me 1.0000 BTC and I’ll release your collection of cat pictures.
/giphy leet hacker
/giphy proper fucked?
check c:\users and see if there are multiple folders with variations of your username, like username.old or something. Find your documents and pictures. Back your shit up first, then proceed to jack with your computer satisfied with the knowledge you can unfuck yourself if it all goes wrong again.
Also, not horrible job trying to get out of the mess you’re in for being drunk.
technical bs: windows user profiles (including your documents, photos, music) are saved in c:\users, the c:\windows directory is just for system stuff.
Your old user data should have been saved off into \windows.old\users. If you merged it back (I’m assuming you copied and pasted everything, maybe?), you should have a “users” directory in your Windows directory you can recover the old files from. If not there, check in your Windows.old directory if it’s still around.
@mikey this is a critical detail I had forgotten. Good catch!
@mikey I deleted the .old part, figured it would replace the current windows with the old one. Not a great idea.
foo bar
First backup, second drink, third install Slackware. Never fails.
… though, I’ve never tried Slackware on an EFI system. The old systems are still going.
Should be able to:
@griffin2020 no luck. thanks for the idea though
I had something similar happen on my mom’s old machine when I tried to upgrade to Windows 10. It did not go well, couldn’t find her pics, docs, music anywhere. I was able to boot into dos, and cd/dir around until I found them. Pulled them onto an external drive and did a restore to 10. Once you have the things you care about, you may as well go back to trying for linux if that’s what you want.
(I won’t tell you, as I know you’ll always back up first in the future, but kiddos out there listening; always back up the things you care about first)
Good luck
@pantheist In the future, if you want an Arch system without going through all the effort, you can use something like Manjaro, which should give you an Arch system without all the upfront work.
Send me $1B in bitcoin.
And then I’ll tell you that your personal files are prob on your hard drive somewhere.
Good luck.
PS.
Windows search sucks. Please tell me you are using something else.
I found files called My Backup on the hard drive when I had issues with windows a few years back on XP. Opening them allowed access to my old stuff and saved a bunch of photos.
Might be able to pull the hard drive and hook it up to a different computer and get the files that way. The gadget or wires to do it are cheap enough to try it if you have the time to wait and a second computer.
Good luck.
Actually, when this happened to a friends, I grabbed their machines and used fancy searches and going thru all those infinite nested directories manually or running file resuscitation present grams until I found them. Along with a buncha spyware and adware.
Machine was always returned to frantic friends in good shape with at least some degree of antivirus and anti-spyware added.
I do not wanna pretend to be any kind of windows master. I am not. My preferred approach to fixing windows is to use a machete on the registry.
None the less, it worked.
I gotta buncha free meals out of that.
@f00l Tried a couple recovery programs without luck. I’m now on arch linux with windows completely wiped. Figured I had nothing to lose anyway.
@Pantheist
I know you’ve bounced back.
And you’re not using windows! Yeah!
Very, on the bright side this fixes your dry spell.
Well that was a learning experience. All weekend getting it working, 4 hours of playing with arch linux with plasma kde, now I’m about to put on a fresh install of windows 10. I guess I at least got rid of the crap I didn’t use.
@Pantheist got hbonow working… maybe I’ll give it a day to see if I can get CUDA to not be sluggish.
@Pantheist so you are at the end of the rope?
Have you tried a disk scraper yet?
I CANNOT provide support for this…
http://www.puransoftware.com/File-Recovery-Download.html
repeat I CANNOT offer support
that might not be the best one… there are a lot of file recovery software… you could well have already overwritten all areas your data was… but…
if you have given up… worth a shot.