Accidentally Installed Windows on My 2TB Drive – Can I Recover My Data?

First off, stop using that drive immediately! The longer you use it, the higher the chance that your data could be overwritten and lost forever. Your best bet is to run some file recovery software or send it to a professional data recovery service. Just keep in mind that there’s a good chance that some of your data isn’t recoverable since it could have been overwritten during the Windows installation.

You should pull the disk out and connect it to a different computer that you can use for recovery. Boot up a recovery program—I've had good experiences with DiskInternals’ NTFS Recovery software. Make sure to run recovery efforts on the backup to avoid making things worse.

As a last resort, you might consider saying the drive was stolen or just stopped working if you're worried about explaining the situation. However, it's better to focus on recovery methods first. Just remember to get another drive that’s the same size to make an image of it—this way, you can still work on recovering your files without risking the original data!