Trying to get back my wsl 2 data

[shane99a]

For whatever reason, my bash decided to deadlock, and restarting didn't help. I tried to repair Ubuntu 18.04 but that seemed to have removed my ubuntu all together. When I open ubunutu it started installing again. I don't know what happened, but all the data that I had in wsl 2 ubuntu is now gone. I need to get it back otherwise I have to setup my home folder all over again with my projects, packages, aliases, etc. Is there any way I can find those files again, or get my wsl2 setup back to normal. This deadlock thing that bash on windows suffers from needs to be figured out, it's such a frustrating error and it just happens randomly.

I had to setup ubunutu with wsl2 all over again. Does wsl 2 not persist the data between reinstalls? Doesn't make sense why its not.

I have been to this location, but I don't see where I can find the old data, if its not already deleted:

\AppData\Local\Packages\CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu18.04onWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc

If my data is lost, how do I ensure in the future a simple deadlock doesn't cause me to lose my entire day figuring it out and setting up everything ALL OVER AGAIN?

[onomatopellan]

What Windows build are you running?

I tried to repair Ubuntu 18.04

What did you exactly do a this step?

In WSL2 the data should be in a ext4.vhdx file in \AppData\Local\Packages\CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu18.04onWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc\LocalState

[NischayaSharma-iamin]

Will i still find the files i uninstalled the Ubuntu20 ???

[onomatopellan]

If you uninstalled Ubuntu20.04 then the files are gone.

[shane99a]

@onomatopellan

I went to Add or Remove programs, searched and clicked on Ubuntu, and went to Advanced Options, clicked Repair. Restarted my computer and from that point bash would use old wsl. When trying to get back to wsl2, I opened Ubunutu from windows start menu, and it was telling me it is installing. At that point, it was becoming clear that my old ubuntu is gone.

I found the ext4 image file but I don't think its the one that I had before, I think when ubuntu installed again, it overwrote it. How can I tell though?

[onomatopellan]

Yes, it's probably overwritten. You can tell from the file size, specially if you installed lots of things in the old Ubuntu.

A very similar problem was fixed in build 19002. See #4974.
If you are in later insider builds then it's a new issue.

[shane99a]

The size I saw was 2 gb.
I have updated windows recently. My os version is: Build 19587.re_prerelease.200313-1639.

Right now I'm setting up everything all over again. I think there needs to be a backup option for image data somehow. Under no circumstance should it assume that its good to overwrite it, unless it saves the old one somewhere else.