Unless you partition the hard drive to live the old
kernel on. The hard has been fully wipe. So you better get some dinner, flowers,
and sorry I F up card. I know my better half would kill me.

flowers it is then....................

Just don't touch the computer until you figure out how you want to
proceed. I did the same thing a few years back and that's how I got into
Linux. The HP rep that I spoke with when my computer was rebooting walked
me through and reinstall before I knew what was happening and I vowed not to
let it happen to me again.

I'm no expert, but my understanding is that the superblock contains the
information about the filesystem like which locations on the disk the files
reside. This is the data that gets erased, and the locations of your old
files are just marked as unused so new files can write over them. The data
may still be there, it's just going to take some work to get it and you may
not get all of it. I don't know how big the drive is but you can use 'dd'
to make a bit for bit copy of the drive (you're going to need another drive
at least as big to hold the image file) so you can work on the computer or
just DONT DO ANYTHING on the computer as this will potentially overwrite the
data you want to get to. There is a set of programs called the Coroner's
toolkit that may help. Backtrack4 has a bunch of forensics tools too.
There are also programs that you can buy that may help. Keep us posted
though, I'm sure there is someone out there with some forensics experience.

You may want to take her out to dinner. Sorry, Chuck E Cheese will not count.

Let me be the first to point out how not funny it is to lose pictures of you
kids/grandkids.

Another reason why a backup isn't an optional extra, it's vital to
your personal well-being

FWIW you aren't first and won't be the last for a data loss disaster
to make them take backing up data more seriously !

I've been trying out a program called R-Linux to do a data recovery on
an EXT3 drive so might be worth checking it out with that before you
decide everything is gone forever ? Currently running it under WinXP
in VBox on this system with the HD in a USB caddy ... bit slow as it's
a 750Gb drive but looks like it's doing the job.

BTW - not my data that's been lost here, my partner's so in a similar
boat though this was her fault

yes
maybe the original ubuntu was installed at the start of the hard drive
and the new ubuntu is installed also at the start
so the data may remain in the middle
(with a bit set as deleted)
so if you remove the hard drive and put it in an external usb caddy
you may be able to get the data back
if you're very lucky -
dont use it any more or install anything else onto it...

I did a quick google search and found the following.

www.ubuntugeek.com/...-foremostscalpel-in-ubuntu.h\
tml

In a rush to upgrade my wife to 10.4 I forgot to move her pictures of the
grand children it was a fresh install I take it there is no way to get them
back or is there a undelete program somewhere.

Upgrading your wife.........to an OS version ...in which salon would this be
done.?

To safeguard treasured info ,may I suggest you store it on a separate USB HD
which is only connected to your PC when storing addtional info .
In this way you keep all you want to keep when you accidentily make a
boo-boo.

I can't suggest that this will work, but it might be worth a try. I can access
Windows files in Linux. Perhaps you can access Linux files in Windows. Remove
the HD from the Linux machine and install as a slave or external USB in a
Windows machine. See what turns up in Windows Explorer. Also, there is a
recommended package called Recuva which works in Windows. It might be worth a
try in a Windows machine.

Found this in the ubuntu forums, a little dated, but a good start to
understanding your options.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery

Windows cannot see Linux partitions natively but there is an add-on to
make them visible http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/. Also
recovery programs for Linux that run under Windows will be able to
access the drive even if Windows itself cannot see it :-)

thanks to all that answered as it says below Microsoft free zone the only
microsoft piece I have is my ergo keyboard.

Unfortunately the R-Linux program is a Windows only one - which is a
bit ironic when you think about it ! It does run well in VBox but not
sure how it would work under Wine but it's worth a shot - then you can
keep your system free of MicroSoft

BTW - I have to run Windows in Virtual Box as there are some things
that need to be done under that, mainly the Pagemaker 6.5 software we
use to do the village magazine 11 times a year. So whilst 100% free of
MicroSoft in daily usage I do have to revert to WinXP every once in a
while. Yes we could switch to Scribus but the time it would take to
re-build the magazine in it would be too much - it's not a paid job !

I could change the sig line to 99.9% MicroSoft Free ... but it looks
messy

In theory, you might be able to make the switch from Pagemaker to
Scribus. Pagemaker can save in either EPS or PDF format, both of which
can be opened by Scribus. I've never had occasion to try this myself,
but I have heard reports from others that it works.

Thanks for the suggestion but it's not so much the conversion of
existing Pagemaker files it's having to re-learn a new interface when
we are used to Pagemaker now. A lot to put in for one job a month and
we really don't have the time to devote to it ! Would be a different
story if using it on a daily basis in our work.

Overall it's better to leave things as they are and use our time more
productively.