Dumbest Thing you have done distro-hopping?

I just discovered something I did so idiotic I need a stronger adjective that what is in my name.

For one of my installs, I accidentally overwrote my 1TB HDD. A few minutes ago I wanted to put back some files… and all I saw was a distro.

It confused me because I was not sure if I was on my solid state drive or the HDD.

So, those files are gone. A lot is gone. Nothing too precious, I think… It might be a tremendous fuck up.

See kids, this is why you back up. Off the computer. Oh well.

EDIT: Recovering files using Photorec. Everyone who recommended this to me is a hero. Also a hero is the person who recommended FTK, but I was too eager to use something now than to sign up to download. I still should though…

hottari,

I’ve done rm -rf / twice on Fedora installs.

DidacticDumbass,

I think I have done that a couple of times intentionally. Seems like one of those cognitive dangers that is harmful because you know it.

popekingjoe,
@popekingjoe@lemmy.world avatar

I once nuked a 6TB drive full of Steam games. Started a full format of the drive. Didn’t realize until it was too late.

DidacticDumbass,

Wow. If I could teleport you some cake I would invite you to take it. That is a lot. I cannot imagine how long it took to redownload.

ininewcrow,
@ininewcrow@lemmy.ca avatar

I got started in Linux about 15 years ago. I’m not skilled nor a techie but knowledgeable enough to make things work. After running endless cracked windows machines I switched to Linux and started distro hopping. But I didn’t have enough money at the time to afford a lot of hard drive space.

I remember going from one distro to another while trying to transfer a couple of GBs worth of work on the same drive. Two GB of data was a big deal to me at the time. At one point late one night after about the tenth distro attempt, I wiped an entire drive worth of my unbacked up work. Worst moment of digital loss I ever had.

I’ve kept double triple and quadruple backups since then … and I still worry about losing data.

DidacticDumbass,

That is haunting.

I tend to be pretty cavalier with my data, because only recently have I started amassing anything of value (starting to be the adult I needed to be 10 years ago).

Yes… I have some storage shopping to do.

It was waaay past midnight when I made my mistake. I should have been sleeping at least 3 hours before.

BolexForSoup,
@BolexForSoup@kbin.social avatar

I’m concerned at the number of people who boot new OS’s without backing up their computer.

DidacticDumbass,

Thank you for your concern, hah!

Yeah, I admit the mistake happened long before last night.

BolexForSoup,
@BolexForSoup@kbin.social avatar

Appreciate the good humor on your part! I’m just being a bit tongue in cheek but PSA: everyone should follow 3-2-1 backup protocol! You’ll never lose your data again!

3 backups
2 formats
1 off-site

So I recommend everyone get 2 decent HDD’s (2nd is clone of 1st) and 1TB of cloud storage. Most services are under $100/yr and let me tell you, you’ll want to spend 5x that to save half of what you lose without it. It’s easier and cheaper than ever to follow this system.

DidacticDumbass,

I may or may not have a OneDrive account that I was paying 2 bucks for but cancelled when it charged full price. I may actually have a lot of the important stuff on there!

Alas, none of the newer stuff like my upated password manager key and anything else after I ended my brief return to Windows.

Yeah, cloud storage is not the monster after all.

DidacticDumbass,

THANK YOU EVERYONE who recommended PHOTOREC! This community is fantastic.

Synthead, (edited )

You might be able to rebuild your partitions with testdisk, too. Work from a backup.

DidacticDumbass,

Neat. I will try that once photorec finishes its search in like a month from now.

backhdlp,
@backhdlp@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I wiped my drive with a lot of non-backed-up data on it intentionally because the Fedora installer was too confusing. Lost among other things my Celeste and Minecraft saves, a lot of images, and other stuff with sentimental value.

xkforce,

Unless you meant to destroy all of that data, that was unintentional not intentional.

backhdlp, (edited )
@backhdlp@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It was intentional, it was just also dumb and a bad decision

xkforce,

You meant to destroy your data?

backhdlp,
@backhdlp@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Yes, I didn’t think about it a lot before doing it, that’s why it was dumb

DidacticDumbass,

Damn. I am sorry for that loss. I agree, I am always boggled every time I use the Fedora installer. I don’t know how I clicked the wrong disk. I didn’t read close enough, or I don’t know.

I hope the new things you make are better than what was wiped.

backhdlp,
@backhdlp@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Tbh I don’t even remember much of the stuff that I lost anymore. I had a lot of images, a legally downloaded series, a good amount of legally downloaded music that I keep forgetting I don’t have on my phone, the aforementioned game saves, and I don’t remember more rn. I was luckily more creative during school so the more important stuff (Siberian sniper crocodile) was on another device.

DidacticDumbass,

Lucky me most of the important stuff are things I have on another computer, or can redownload from email or whatever service that needed it.

But my new passwords… oh well. Recovery is typically easy.

What sucks is losing things you did not know you would need or miss until much later.

Starbuck,

It sounds like you need to learn about disk forensics before you go any further. Check out FTK

DidacticDumbass,

Hah, I don’t think I illustrated how dumb I am. I deleted the partitions already.

snowe,
@snowe@programming.dev avatar

You can still recover.

DidacticDumbass,

I shall try!!

static_dragon,

Oh, I’ve nuked partitions in the past before, and was able to recover using photorec, when doing it, just make sure you don’t save the files to the drive you’re running recovery on

DidacticDumbass,

Good tip! I… would maybe have realized that would worsen the situation.

Starbuck,

Also, all of us have done things because we didn’t know better. The only dumb thing to do here is to not learn how to fix this. Try and fail, so next time you know how it works and can do better.

DidacticDumbass,

Thank you! This is just my way of laughing at the situation. I am definitely learning some new skills like data recovery and critical thinking.

Starbuck,

Unless it was encrypted, it prob doesn’t matter. The partition table is just the road map that points to the houses (files). A tool like FTK or PhotoRec goes byte by byte to find the files and figure out what they are. You won’t have file names, but the data might still be there.

DidacticDumbass,

I got it running now! I did not have that much to recovery, so everything will fit in home. Mostly word files, PDFs, and pictures. Few movies and music.

RiderExMachina, (edited )

Before you perform another task on that hard drive, try photorec. You might be able to get a majority of your files back if they’re important

DidacticDumbass,

I guess I can try it, since I did not like, wipe everything.

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