cgsecurity.org

I have a Dell desktop 3800. I have never installed Windows on this. It is a pure Ubuntu system Linux system. I had 14.04 Ubuntu on it last week. I did not back up my /home directory before reinstalling Ubuntu 16.04 directory. Would testdisk help me recover my home directory ?

You can use PhotoRec to recover your data.
Note that if your home directory is encrypted, you will need your private key and the passphrase. (Read Ubuntu documentation for more details)

Thanks for your response. It(photorec) is doing the recovery and I am not sure how many files will be recovered.

Is it dangerous to shut it down while it is doing it ?

I was able to recover the home directory but the not the files I wanted.

When I actually zoom in to the directory I want it actually starts the whole process again. What I meant by this was - I went under/home/ashwin/xyz for the specific files I want. It is basically doing the whole thing over again.

By the way it is wonderful enough to stop/start where I last left it. For that I am grateful because Ubuntu freezes and I need to restart the machine.

When I do
grep -R =I pattern I do not get the files I want. Does this mean I have lost it permanently or is there a possibility that it is still out there?