WinXP files deleted after insatall Ubuntu

I suggest that you plug your Dell Vostro hard drive to another computer. Install on that working machine a data recovery software like FinalData (http://www.finaldata.com) or Ontrack (http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com).

Just hope that those segments on the hard drive where your Windows files are saved are not yet overwritten.

Yes the best plan is to stop using this machine immediately, and especially make sure you don't save anything to the hard-drive. If you want to try doing data-recovery yourself then you'll need to boot off a different drive and write to that using the drive with the data as a read only drive. Sometimes you can get away with using a different partition on the same drive but not if the problem involves Windows at all.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery

Mostly though i would seriously consider these files lost unless you are willing to pay quite a bit of money in an attempt to get them back. This is why the world tends to neatly divides into 2 groups; 1) people that haven't yet had a serious data loss problem, 2) people that make a lot of backups. Hopefully you will find it faster to go back to original sources and rebuild the data or find that you have backups, perhaps you emailed some stuff to people in attachments, perhaps some stuff is on external drives (usb sticks) or dvds or something? Doing something the first time takes ages but repeating it is often surprisingly quick.

Good luck and sorry to hear of your loss :(
Regards from
Tom

One quick thing worth trying is to put the Ubuntu cd in the cd/dvd-drive and try booting up from it
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootFromCD
choose the option "Try Ubuntu without making changes to the machine" (the default option) and this should get you to a working desktop comparable with Xp's, we call this a "LiveCd session" Now go up to the top-taskbar and click on the "Places" menu. There should be a couple of items such as "20 Gb Media" just hunt around in there to see if anything looks Windowsy - you're looking for one of the media to have a folder "WINDOWS" (they like using upper case shouty lettering) and more importantly "Documents and Settings". If you can find that then youve been lucky.

Please let us know how you get on!
Good luck and regards from
Tom

Did you repartition the drive or leave windows in place and do side by side installation?

Yes, i was wondering that. It could be just that Olsenck still has Xp there as part of a dual-boot even if the grub boot-loader didn't pick-up on that. It's happened to me a few times, in which case it's quite easy to find the data. However, they seem fairly adamant that they did wipe the drive even though that's not the default, in my experience. The question is whether it's just natural panic, noobishness (hoping for this one really, that's what happened to me), natural assumptions given the way the Windows installers try to do things or have they really done what they thought (unlikely)? Anyway, looking in the "Places" menu on a LiveCd session or 5minutes in a data-recovery company should clarify what's happened there.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Dear Guy,
thanks for all the advice......i have tried the recommendation given...i still cant find my win file...anyway guys...Thks alot...
Am still earger to install Ubuntu into this system of mine.(My personal notebook having dual OS...Win & Ubuntu)
am normally using Ubuntu...

am glad that u guys giving a prompt response.

Have a nice day....

Thanks, good luck and have fun with it all :)))
Regards from
Tom :)