HELP: erased by USB drive by accident when installing OSMC

Help and Support Raspberry Pi
1

I carelessly installed OSMC on my USB thumb drive instead of the SD card. USB drive had important stuff on it. I have not put the USB drive in Kodi. Is there a way to get back the data on my USB drive?

I am guessing it re-partitioned my USB drive to a different file format?

I used a file recovery program to get some files back, but lost all the file names. Is there a way to restore the entire partition?

It mentions a “go back” option, or something like that, when you first put an SD card in the RPI. However, not sure what to do with USB stick.

2

Have a Google around for file recovery tools (sounds like you’ve already done that), not really an OSMC issue and not really anything that we can do for you.

Sorry (I hope you get some more helpful answers though).

3

Here is what I do not understand, from the link below:

**15. Formatting & Installation**

After you’ve waited your 60 seconds and committed your USB stick to a new life as a media centre, the installation will format the USB stick and install the necessary files.

From How To Install OSMC On A Usb Stick For Your Raspberry Pi - Raspberry Pi

That seems to imply that there is a way to back out?

4

You would not image the USB drive from the OSMC Installer, you would select a USB install but would still be expected to image an SD card to boot from.

If you haven’t booted your device from the SD card, then your USB hasn’t been repartitioned. Simply plug it back in, and all is well.

Otherwise, if you imaged the USB directly, then you will need to perform some recovery. This method of imaging does not work on OSMC anyway – you need an SD to boot from at this time.

Sam

5

Where is the implication of a way back?

7

I installed from OSMC installer. Never put USB in Raspberry. However, when I look at the USB drive, I see the contents below:

“G:\kernel.img”
“G:\preseed.cfg”
“G:\start_cd.elf”
“G:\bootcode.bin”
“G:\cmdline.txt”
“G:\config.txt”
“G:\filesystem.tar.xz”
“G:\fixup_cd.dat”

8

Step 14 from same link How To Install OSMC On A Usb Stick For Your Raspberry Pi - Raspberry Pi

14
First boot – Last chance to back out

When you first power up your Pi with your SD and USB stick installed, it’ll give you 6o seconds to change your mind. Why would you come this far and turn back?

You have 60 seconds to remove your USB stick if you change your mind
15. Formatting & Installation

After you’ve waited your 60 seconds and committed your USB stick to a new life as a media centre, the installation will format the USB stick and install the necessary files.

That is what I do not understand.

9

Found my error.

I see now, you have to select USB drive in step 6 and SD card in step 8 (which is counter intuitive).

I messed up in step 8. Instead of selecting the SD card for the install, I selected the USB drive. However, the instructions were clear, I just assumed…

10

The author of the guide you are following is somewhat confused. The OSMC installer prepares the SD card for installation. It only ever needs to write to the SD card regardless of what type of install you are doing, it just does different stuff to the SD card depending on your choices.

If you wanted to perform a USB install, then you prepare the SD card on the PC/Laptop/Mac and then insert your SD card AND USB stick into the Pi. Upon booting, after giving you one last warning and a 60 second timeout only then does the USB get overwritten.

If sounds like your issue is that instead of writing files to the SD card with the installer you wrote files to the USB stick. There are some warnings in place to try and prevent this but in your case they didn’t appear sufficient.