Hey everyone, I'm in a bit of a bind and need some advice. I recently installed Linux Mint on my friend's old desktop because it was struggling to run Windows. Before doing that, I transferred his important family photos and videos onto a 128GB USB drive. Unfortunately, during the process, I realized my jacket pocket has a small hole, and one of the USB drives fell out while I was out for a walk. Now, I'm terrified because that drive contained the only copies of those precious files! I've searched everywhere and retraced my steps, but it's totally lost.
So, I'm wondering:
1. Are there any realistic ways to recover data from a lost USB drive?
2. Is there any hope for recovering files from the now-installed Linux system? I know without the USB or a backup it might not be possible, but I want to be sure I'm not overlooking anything.
Thanks for your help!
5 Answers
Honestly, you really dropped the ball on backups! If the install overwrote the original data, it’s likely gone for good, especially if it was on an SSD. It’s a bummer, but the best chance now is to try to find that USB drive or check if any files might have synced to a cloud service like Google Drive or OneDrive.
You really have two options here: Find that USB drive or see if any of the files ever ended up in a cloud service. Most of the time, once you overwrite data during such an install, it’s tough to recover anything meaningful. It might be worth checking around your friend’s place for other old drives that might have the files saved.
The data you lost is likely overwritten. If you can find that USB, you could try recovery software on it, but expect some data loss. And lesson learned—always have at least two backups next time, especially for important stuff!
Check if your friend used services like OneDrive or Google Photos; any backups might be there! Also, if they have any old SD cards or other USBs lying around, those could have copies of the files too. Hope this helps!
You really can’t recover files from the Linux system now since it's a fresh install. If the drive got reformatted to ext4, the chance of recovering the old files is slim. Sorry to say, but you might have to accept this one.
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