Ubuntu killed my hard drive.

Oh dear.

hold on - but you asked it to do something that caused it first.

More likely: you killed your hard drive by incorrectly partitioning it. Try this.

don't install ubuntu... go slack !! ;)

Gonzalo: no

atomic: Thanks...site bookmarked.

banana: you are probably correct.

None the less, I am back up and running. Will take a while to replace some things...others are irreplaceable.

live and learn...I love computers!

As rules of thumb:

1) If you think you might have just made a mistake with data, stop and take stock immediately. Consider the cost of replacing the data at risk (the entire drive) and the cost of a new hard drive. If the new hard drive is cheaper, go buy one immediately. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Pretend it is a set of vehicle brakes that might be dodgy, and that your data is in the car, headed towards a red-light at a busy intersection.

2) If after further review (on a duplicate that you copied to the new drive only if you know how to do so!), you believe you have done something you cannot fix, then evaluate the value of your data versus the price of a data recovery service. It may well be affordable in comparison, and it only costs you a few minutes to find out.

3) Even if you know exactly what you're doing (I sometimes do), _never_ work on your original data. If you think there might be a hardware issue, then work with at least _two_ copies of your data, one that you work on, and one that you only read from.

4) Backups are your friends. Keep them. Love them. Snuggle with them. But don't keep them at home, because houses burn. Some good backups, and you can save yourself the cost of a new drive or three.

"4) Backups are your friends. Keep them. Love them. Snuggle with them. But don't keep them at home, because houses burn. Some good backups, and you can save yourself the cost of a new drive or three."

That's pretty much what I claimed.

Sure, but the first three apply even if you don't have backups. I just never miss an opportunity to recommend backups.

All good advice, but I do believe all of my stuff is in never-never land. Fortunately, I didn't lose a whole lot of important stuff...mostly pics and music, etc.

Unless you used DBAN or a similar repeated wiping tool, there will be some recoverable data.

If you used a cheap disk wiping tool, it is probably too far gon to be worthwhile.

Excepting those above or their functional equivalents, there is some data left.

If the data loss event took less time than it takes to fill your hard drive, the chances are good that there is data to recover. It may need an expert, but sometimes that is preferable to the alternative.

When I got to the part of the install that gave the option for file transfers there was 'no files found for transfer'. That was a red flag that something had gone seriously wrong.

Indeed. However, note that ext filesystems (for example) don't typically overwrite the contents of the disk when they are created, and that, unless your disk was very small, even if the entire Ubuntu distribution was installed it wouldn't overwrite a large fraction of the data on the drive.

Here's a question...I have two hard drives installed. Before this snafu my computer recognized both, now after the snafu it only recognizes the main hard drive. How do I get the computer to recognize the second hard drive again?

That depends on your use of the word 'recognize', and the cause of the change.

Windows won't create a drive letter for filesystems it doesn't recognize, for example, and you can solve that by partitioning/formatting with an appropriate filesystem.

I couldn't help without a bunch more info. I don't know (other than comments) how chat works on Jyte, but if you tell me more (OS, version, original (pre-problem) behavior, new (post-problem) behavior, anything and everything you did between the last time you noticed correct behavior and the first time you noticed incorrect behavior, as well as what actions you've taken since then, whether your BIOS sees the drive, anything else that might be of vague interest/import), I'll take a look and see if I can help tomorrow.

I will work on that and report back. Thanks for the help and advice.

BTW, if I simply shut down the computer and disconnect and reconnect the second (internal) hard drive would that cause the BIOS to then 'see' it?

Typically (absent unusual hardware failure), disconnecting the hard drive while the power is off, and restoring the original cable configuration (reconnecting it) before powering the computer back on will not affect anything.

Hmmm, interesting...thanks again.