Did you read through the documentation. You are supposed to create a log file if you so desire and then you select the recovery drive where you want to save the files. Then you select the partition type of the selected drive and then select the advanced option for file recovery.Then you select the drive partition where the files were lost so it knows where to look.
Does it allow you to specify to recover the files back to the original folder? Or where did you specify to recover them?
Dear ricklinux,
I believe I did exactly what the documentation said. I read each item and then I did what it said. But Iām getting an awful lot of fails. Iām fairly certain that I selected the correct place to recover the files.
Should I create a Documents folder on my actual system before trying to recover the files? I have them going to Documents but there is no Documents folder there. (I had deleted the whole thing.)
Do you think I should try running testdisk from my actual system rather than using it from the ISO?
Thank you (and dalto) for your patience with me.
Lawrence
The problem with that is you donāt want to write to the drive you have lost the files on or they are unrecoverable. Iām not sure why you are getting errors. Where are you recovering the files to?
I selected the Documents folder shown in the part where you choose the items you want recovered. I thought that I selected the /home folder on the computer.
I must be doing something wrong but I donāt know what it is.
Do you think that I should try again? Iām getting far more fails than oks.
Lawrence
I think i messed up this post.
Edit: I think i fixed it. 
Edit: I donāt know if this helps? It sayās there is an undelete at the bottom of the window?
I just went downstairs to look at the computer and it says that itās copying to /home/verix-cuxtom-l/
But there are LOTS of fails. I just donāt understand and I donāt know what else to do.
Lawrence
Are you copying the files into the live session and they are disappearing when you reboot? You need to copy them to another drive.
Dear ricklinux,
I just read this Itās FOSS guide and the thought occurred to me: Iām trying to recover an entire FOLDER and, of course, ALL of the files within it. Does that make a difference?
And should I create a Documents folder in /home prior to trying to recover?
Lawrence
Would that be the reason for all of the fails? I do not think Iām copying into the live session but maybe I am. Should I try testdisk from my actual system?
Lawrence
But I thought thatās what I have been doing. I guess I havenāt been. I really donāt know how to change what I have been doing as I thought that I had understood what I was doing. I do not understand why there are some OKs and lots of failts.
The only way I can see if anything actually copied is to stop the process and reboot into my system. (I never checked to see if there was a /home/verix-custom-1/ folder/.
Do you think that I should stop because of all the fails? Do you think that I should try recovering from the actual system rather than the live ISO?
Lawrence
When you select the drive to save the files to it should be another drive that is not where the files are lost on. You donāt want to write to that drive and you donāt want to save it to the live ISO either.
Iām going to go downstairs and stop the process and see if anything has been written. Iāll be back in a couple of minutes.
Lawrence
At this point, you may want to consider taking it to a professional if this data is really critical. It is hard to tell without looking over your shoulder but if you write data to the wrong location you will only make things worse.
Dear dalto,
I may have to do just that. I have mounted an external thumb drive (256 GB) but I canāt find any way to copy the files to it. It shows up but when I try to copy files, there is no way to select this drive.
Is there some way that Iām overlooking to be able to select this thumb drive?
This data is REALLY critical. How does one go about finding a professional who would be able to work with EndeavourOS (Linux)?
Lawrence
I think I may know a local company who might be able to help me.
I canāt tell you how upset I am.
Lawrence
I do very much want to thank dalto and ricklinux for trying to help me. I had started backing up my Documents to external hard drives as I have done a āmillionā times in the past. Rather than overwriting the documents on those hard drives (which takes quite a long time), I always delete the old Documents folder on them and then copy the latest Documents folder to them. Normally I use two desktops - one with my current folders and the other with the folders on the external drives.
Usually I leave the two desktops open but sometimes I just close the desktop which shows all of my folders (Usually I am copying only one of them, in general, the Documents.)
Today, I had the Documents folder (my main one,the one I was copying) on that second Desktop still highlighted and, instead of hitting Ctrl+Q, I hit Shift+Del.
That did it! I was ruined. This careless (stupid) error on my part (why I would have done such a thing I cannot understand) will probably cost a lot of money to have the Documents recovered (if in fact they can be). I have never made such an error before and obviously Iām going to have to change my ways.
I canāt eat and I hope that Iāll be able to sleep tonight. I hope that when I turn off the computer I wonāt make things any worse than they are now.
Thank you both again for trying to help me.
Lawrence
@lhb1142 I was about to suggest to stop anything you do to that computer and bring it to a recovery expert if the files are important to you. Itās not a time to experiment around if those files are valuable. Any additional mistakes you make, especially if you donāt really understand what you are doing will cause an even greater difficulty in recovering those files, even professionally.
A non technical advice here (although maybe this site is not the place for such things, but we are still all human after all):
Accidents happen. Donāt worry too much about it. It helps more if you just focus on solutions instead of going over and over a thing that you canāt simply undo. And nothing is worth your health (well, maybe saving another oneās life or health)
Stop for a second and tell yourself things are not so bad as they seem. A fire could have destroyed your pc and backup drive, or any other sum of bad things.
Just accept the loss (of money in this case, especially if you have to pay a professional) and move on. Youāll have to put some effort in solving this. Accept that and just do it. It will pass.
I just want to add another thing: I had this happen to me in the past: I accidentally deleted my Photo directory and some other personal files. Years worth of photographic images of my life. I was crushed, but then I realized, I never revisited those pictures. Never took the time to actually browse through them. I did so just initially when I organized them. So I realized they donāt really mean so much to me. Yes they are irreplaceable, but their value to me was not so high if I went back and thought about it. I extended that thought about other files on my system which I was hoarding and hauling along on any new system install and realized a lot of that was just a dead weight. The files I needed and were lost I recovered through other means, or recreated them.
Since that accident I really have very few files that are crucial stored solely on my PC. Really important files I send to myself over email and store somewhere in the cloud (if I use gmail then I donāt use google drive but dropbox, so theyāre not with the same service provider).
Hi Lawrence,
Testdisk is very powerfull but it needs to be used correctly if not each action you do on the wrong way brings complicationā¦
Like @Dalto said, most important first is to create an ISO of the disk you want recover data then work only on this picture ISO to not touch your original data lost.
On this way, you are totally safe to try everything you want with Testdisk. You would have to prepare a space around 100Go to copy the data you lost on it.
If you are NOT able to create the ISO first, stop to play with Testdisk.