I have a Windows PC with two physical drives: a nearly full C: drive and a second SSD of roughly 500 GB that mainly contains games installed through Steam and Epic Games. After the PC developed port and freezing problems, I took it to a repair shop. When I started it afterward, Windows ran an automatic repair on the secondary drive. The drive letter changed from G: to D:, and many files disappeared. One manually installed game now has only a few files left, while Epic says some games need repair but is looking for the old drive letter. Windows also reported that the recycle bin on this SSD was corrupted and repeatedly asked whether I wanted to empty it. The drive is still visible, but Windows now reports only about 89 GB instead of its previous 500+ GB. What could cause this, and is there anything I should do before trying to recover the missing data?
3 Answers
Epic's repair failure is probably just because the library path still points to G: while the drive is now D:. That can be fixed later by assigning the old letter back or re-adding the library, but do not do that until the missing data is safe. The priority is making a sector-by-sector clone or image of the SSD to another drive and performing recovery on the clone. If the SSD is intermittently disconnecting, unusually slow, or making the system freeze, avoid repeated scans and use a recovery professional instead.
Changing the drive letter from G: to D: would not delete files, and it also would not make a 500 GB drive report as only 89 GB. That strongly suggests a partition, formatting, disk-detection, or hardware problem rather than an Epic or Steam issue. Stop installing games, running repairs, deleting files, or emptying the recycle bin on that drive, since those actions can overwrite recoverable data. First check Disk Management to see the disk's total capacity and whether there is unallocated space or an unexpectedly small partition. If the physical disk itself is shown as around 89 GB, disconnect it and consider professional data recovery, especially if the files are important.
The corrupted recycle-bin message usually means Windows could not read the hidden recycle-bin folder on that volume. It can happen after filesystem corruption or an interrupted repair, but it does not explain the drive shrinking from 500 GB to 89 GB by itself. The repair shop may have connected the drive differently, altered its partitions, reinstalled or repaired Windows, or the SSD may be failing. Ask the shop exactly what they changed and whether they repartitioned or formatted the drive. Also verify the SSD's model and capacity in BIOS or a disk-information tool rather than relying only on File Explorer.
The computer still shows the secondary drive, but its letter changed from G: to D:, and Windows reports only about 89 GB available on it. I definitely had two separate physical drives before taking the PC in.