Hey everyone, I need some serious help. I was experimenting with a USB drive I prepared for my new tech job, which had Windows ISOs on it. When I booted from the USB, I noticed some command prompts running automatically. I panicked and stopped it as soon as I could, but it seems like it was already too late. Now, my entire drive is wiped, and I have a fresh Windows installation with no sign of my important files or partitions anymore. I had irreplaceable photos from family vacations, pictures of my beloved pets who have passed, crucial university documents, and other private items. It's devastating. I've only downloaded PhotoRec since the incident, but I'm unsure how to use it. My big questions are: Can I recover my original folder structure, or will I just retrieve files without any names? Should I clone the drive before using PhotoRec or other recovery tools? Is there any hope of restoring the partition structure to access the files as they were? Also, if anyone has recommendations for tools like TestDisk or R-Studio, I'm all ears. Do you think there's still a good chance of recovering my data since I've only installed Windows and haven't used the drive any further? Any advice would really mean a lot to me. Thanks in advance!
1 Answer
When you wipe a hard drive, it's usually just the file entries that are deleted, not the actual data. But remember, any new writing to that drive could overwrite existing data, making recovery much harder. It's really best to unplug that drive right now and use a different one for your Windows install. Consider taking it to a local PC repair shop for professional recovery options if you're not comfortable doing it yourself. They might have more advanced tools than what’s available to us at home.
Thanks for the tip! I’m in a small town, so I might be on my own with this recovery thing.