Question Lost everything in windows fresh installation

[beastaest]

I'm absolutely freaking out right now. I upgraded my PC from old gen intel CPU and asus rog strix Z390-E mobo to a AMD 5 Ryzen 7800X3D cpu and rog strix B650E-F mobo. I saw online when you switch mobos and cpus ESPECIALLY from Intel to AMD you should fresh install windows.

Like an idiot I didn't think about what a fresh install means and when you're at the window to choose the disk what deleting all those partitions does (I know you get a message that files will be lost). However, it wouldn't let me fresh install unless I deleted all those partitions and many websites/videos confirmed this. So, I happily deleted them all with nothing backed up.

The PC boots up fine and I see nothing but the drive I put the windows install on and all my data is gone. This absolutely will turn my life upside down losing all those files. I know it's my fault, but I rushed thinking it would be fine. I fresh installed long ago in the past with no issues, but I have no clue what I did different (I think I unplugged all the other drives except the drive I wanted windows/boot on - then plugged the other ones in after it was fresh installed).

My question is, am I completely screwed? Is there anyway to recover what was on those drives, or did I completely wipe them without any hope of getting it back? It's really over for me if that's the case...

edit update: thank you to everyone who gave input, luckily my HDD is what contained most important files and apparently that is easier to recover from. Recuva was able to to find 1TB worth of files to recover. Not all are useful, but many were!

https://imgur.com/a/mjsd039

View: https://imgur.com/a/mjsd039

 

[USAFRet]

My question is, am I completely screwed?

Yes.

You want details?

 

[USAFRet]

IF the other drives were physically disconnected during this install process, the data on them should be OK.

What, specifically, might have been on these drives?

But whatever was on your current C drive is gone gone gone.

 

[beastaest]

IF the other drives were physically disconnected during this install process, the data on them should be OK.

What, specifically, might have been on these drives?

But whatever was on your current C drive is gone gone gone.

I remember that is exactly what I did when I did a fresh install on my previous drive was disconnect those drives. I don't know how I was such an idiot.

Lot's of personal stuff for my life whether it was job, school, medical, general expense items and anything related to that, you name it, it's really all gone then huh...

 

[DSzymborski]

The best you can do now is *stop* using this drive, put it in another PC or an enclosure, and see if anything can be recovered from DMDE or Recuva.

Unfortunately, the problem is decisions made long before this. As the old phrase goes, "one copy is zero copies." Drives can fail at any time, get infected by viruses or hijacked, or data can accidentally be deleted. You have data, the loss of which would "turn your life upside down," yet this data was, according to you, not properly backed up, ideally in multiple places. Hopefully, even if you're able to recover some of your files, you take this lesson to heart and treat important files in the future as if they were important files.

 

[beastaest]

The best you can do now is *stop* using this drive, put it in another PC or an enclosure, and see if anything can be recovered from DMDE or Recuva.

Unfortunately, the problem is decisions made long before this. As the old phrase goes, "one copy is zero copies." Drives can fail at any time, get infected by viruses or hijacked, or data can accidentally be deleted. You have data, the loss of which would "turn your life upside down," yet this data was, according to you, not properly backed up, ideally in multiple places. Hopefully, even if you're able to recover some of your files, you take this lesson to heart and treat important files in the future as if they were important files.

You're totally right, I really can't understand how I made such a stupid mistake. I thought I was getting wiser as I got older (especially considering I did it right the first time I fresh installed.........).

I'm using recuva right now and have a screen that says this. Does this mean any hope or no?

https://imgur.com/a/8aYjAMz

View: https://imgur.com/a/8aYjAMz

 

[stonecarver]

If these drive are mechanical and not a ssd you have a great chance of getting stuff back.

After your scan just a word of caution if you get to where you can start to recover your stuff don't save it back to the drive your pulling it off. If you do you will loose recovery to still not saved items that you now wrote over the space.

 

[beastaest]

If these drive are mechanical and not a ssd you have a great chance of getting stuff back.

After your scan just a word of caution if you get to where you can start to recover your stuff don't save it back to the drive your pulling it off. If you do you will loose recovery to still not saved items that you now wrote over the space.

The one with the most important stuff is on a HDD. It's now over 500,000 items found at 80% so I won't get my hopes up for what can be recovered.

So to clarify, if I can recover any files. I should save them to a different drive like my other SSD for now, while it's still in the recovering process, so it doesnt overwrite possible files in the HDD?

 

[stonecarver]

Correct.