Dir gone - how to get it back?

[Nils Kassube]

rikona wrote:
> I'm setting up a new 12.04 box. Just installed a few printers, which
> seemed to go OK - BUT, after that, one of my home dirs is GONE! Was a
> BIG one with about 1/3 of the stuff in home, and very important. Any
> idea of why just that dir [apparently] disappeared? Better still, any
> way to recover it? I can't see it via another admin account, or with
> the CLI. New box, a few days of intensive work, and didn't do a backup
> yet. :-(
> 
> What's the best thing to do [not involving a large soothing glass of
> Scotch :-) ]?

Maybe you can find something helpful here: 
<https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery>. Most important is this 
part IMHO:

| You should NOT write to the failed device, as it can worsen a hardware
| failure, and overwrite existant data in case of lost files. 
|
| Shut down the affected machine as soon as possible, and restart it
| from a LiveCD or LiveUSB. Be certain that the "live" cd does not
| automatically mount any partition or swap space. 


Nils