Is my data lost? Installed Linux, no longer can I access my hard drives.

Linux and Unix-Like Linux
1

Here's the story -

I installed Linux on my Y drive, and all went well until I tried to boot into XP again. I can't access or install an operating system to my other three hard drives, C, X, and Z.

I think that during the install my hard drives were changed to something other then NTFS, but Linux won't access them either.

When I use my Windows XP or Windows 7 disc, it says the drive has 0mb free, and it can't install until I delete the partition, then reformat. I don't want to do this obviously, because I don't want to format all of my data.

When I go to Places > My Computer it lists my CD drive, Filesystem, and the Y drive. It doesn't show my other three hard drives.

Under Palimpsest Disk Utility I can see my other three drives, but I can't access the data on them yet.

Help!

2

You don't say which Linux distro you installed or whether it was a "Live" version, it is possible you have created a system wide LVM.

If you have gparted installed see what it says about your disk partitions. If it's not installed try downloading the systemrescue cd from Main Page - SystemRescueCd (always useful to have) and see what gparted and the other tools have to say.

3

also, if you have a live cd, or if you can boot into rescue/recover mode on the CD do an fdisk -l (L) and send the output to us

4

Thank you for your replies so far....

To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>". 
See "man sudo_root" for details. 

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l 

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes 
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders 
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes 
Disk identifier: 0x00ca89b7 

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System 
/dev/sda1               1        9730    78148608    7  HPFS/NTFS 

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes 
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders 
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes 
Disk identifier: 0x3de4bf44 

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System 
/dev/sdb1               1       60801   488384001   17  Hidden HPFS/NTFS 

Disk /dev/sdc: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes 
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders 
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes 
Disk identifier: 0x76397639 

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System 
/dev/sdc1               1       60801   488384001   8e  Linux LVM 

Disk /dev/sdd: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes 
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders 
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes 
Disk identifier: 0x32dbca08 

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System 
/dev/sdd1               1       60801   488384001   8e  Linux LVM 

Disk /dev/sde: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes 
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 10337 cylinders 
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes 
Disk identifier: 0xf03b4104 

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System 
/dev/sde1               1       10338    78147584    7  HPFS/NTFS 
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ 1
5

Ok you definitely have a LVM problem with hidden partitions.

try the following:

sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /mnt/foo
sudo ls -l /mnt/foo
sudo umount /dev/foo

try sdb1 & sde1 as well

If you can get your NTFS partitions to mount you will need an external device to backup your Windows data before setting up your system from scratch.

You could also consider disconnecting all the drives and trying to boot from:
1) the drive XP is installed on
2) the drive Vista is installed on

If they won't boot check them with Gparted or Partition Magic to see if the boot flag is set.