/home partition erased after install

xakepp35

10/15/23, 4:11 PM

Tried to "upgrade" ubuntu 20.04->22.04, by doing clean install

In partition manager I've killed old / partition (omit that, imagine i wanted dual boot) created new / partition and checked format then i've picked partition which holded old /home selected use ext4 and mount point /home

didnt checked box to format it, to preserve old user data

after reinstall all the data gone - in home there is only new user so basically new installation killed old user home directory, despite it was separate from binaries partition, so old system (if i needed to keep it) wont work well, and i cannot rescue my data!

where are old folders from /home partitions? why its empty, why that happened?

basically i want to setup thing with shared /boot and /home to share userdata and have single bootloader, and have multiple distros(binaries versions) - each one on its own partition.. how to achieve that? what should be my step before adding new Ubuntu version X to PC?

current layour is as follows (know that i need to add /boot):

nvme0n1
│                                                                           
├─nvme0n1p1
│    vfat   FAT32       71EE-5F88                             473,1M     7% /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2
│    ext4   1.0         48f549cb-ecfb-42fa-8ba9-9f4661f06240   28,4G    18% /
├─nvme0n1p3
│                                                                           
├─nvme0n1p4
│    ntfs         System
│                       A2BA28A0BA2872C9                                    
└─nvme0n1p5
     ext4   1.0   shome 6d8dc655-4309-4caa-95a7-56cf2a3b7e30  118,4G     0% /home

1 + 5

partitioning

dual-boot

home-directory

reinstall

mook765

10/15/23, 4:32 PM

Have you checked if the old home-partition is mounted in the new install? Please provide output of `lsblk -f`.

xakepp35

10/15/23, 4:43 PM

@mook765 nvme0n1p5 is the one that was with old folders, which are now completely missing

xakepp35

10/15/23, 4:43 PM

created test folder in new partition, will try to reinstall again meanwhile, adding /boot

mook765

10/15/23, 4:53 PM

Usually there is no need to use a separate /boot-partition. Next time, create a backup of your personal files before reinstalling or editing partitions to prevent data loss in case anything goes wrong.

xakepp35

10/15/23, 5:11 PM

i cound not repeat this for second time. partition remained untouched and user migrated to reinstalled os alongside with test files. I bet i didnt checked format checkbox.. its unchecked by default, why can i want to check to format my data? anyway deal is done, whats lost - is lost..thanks for your input!

Score:1

Ubuntu

emk2203

10/15/23, 4:17 PM

You most likely thought you didn't click 'format', but you did. There's often a lag between the click and the checkmark appearing in the installer, so this a mistake you need to double-check for after you made your partition layout.

I almost made this mistake once, this is why I am proposing this theory. Double-checking saved my data.

+ 1

xakepp35

10/15/23, 5:12 PM

not likely - its unchecked by default, and im not so mad to format my personal data). tried to repeat second time, but failed to.. anyway ssh private keys are lost as well as some source code pieces (which was luckily backed up, and ssh i will just need to regenerate).. after 25 years dealing with software i can only say - ubuntu installer is "awesome" - results of its work is not predictable, we still cant select not to install eg firefox and other bloatware, and it wont know if it will format something or not - they cant replace partition editor to something powerful and simple as gparted..

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: /home partition erased after install

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