I was about to switch from Zorin to KDE Neon, so I transferred my files from Zorin to my NTFS-formatted D drive. Then, without checking again, I deleted Zorin — only to find that the files were nowhere to be found. In this post, I’ll explain how I fixed it.
My Guesses About the Root Cause
- Linux may still have issues with NTFS.
- NTFS may be sensitive to file names.
- An error may have occurred during the file transfer process.
Solution
- I checked the disk on Windows where the files had disappeared. I could see the files were taking up space.
- I ran the
chkdsk /rcommand to fix the disk error. (I couldn’t find the original source, but it worked.) - The files had been moved to a Found.000 folder. You can try copying the files from this folder to a safe location.
- If that doesn’t work, TeraCopy helped me at this step. I had no errors when copying files.
Lesson Learned
Always double-check when making backups. When I noticed the files were missing, I didn’t panic and researched the solution. In the end, I recovered my files. I hope this was helpful.
Source: Recovery was done using chkdsk /r — a built-in Windows disk repair utility.
