What started off as a simple Window's upgrade 8.1 - 10 has gone quite wrong.
1st'ly I got caught on the blue freeze screen when my SSD 120GB was able to cope with the 133 Windows updates that were directed my way. After several hours installing them my PC decided things wouldn't fit and began uninstall said updates. This was followed by some (in hindsight) compulsive behaviour which led me to go through the BIOS / recovery option fun-park, all to no avail.
Ended up doing a clean install of Windows 8.1 which lead to the loss off some not too important data.. II run the operating system on the SSD and all other data is kept on my permanently plugged in seagate 500GB external USB drive, despite having a NAS at my disposal ... another wise yet unmotivated series of relocation's due to work hasn't inspired me to set it back up ... again.
End result I lost Microsoft Office programs but did have the Reg.. key for Windows 8 on the side of my desktop Asus 8GB Ram built by a local company for me in 2015. Run Kaspersky Internet Security, which after speaking to them I was also unable to re-install even though I had proof of previous years purchases when the 12 month anniversary occurred. Obtained 30 day trial and only had about 6 weeks left anyway, so no drama there.
So far weren't really that bad, then I realised I had some data on the now overwritten SSD that was reasonably important. Cloned the driive annd gaave it to IT to perform deepscan and make everything ok, this was not possible, too much partition overlapping. Fair enough I thought,
<mod edit> happens ... So after re=installing the SSD as core system drive and adding in another 1TB SATA drive to provide a little future proofing I managed to install the drives the wrong way around.
Spent few hours figuring out that I'd prefer Micro Office 19 instead of 365. So to purchase that I needed to upgrade to Windows 10, which given my challenges over the past 2 weeks wasn't going to be too difficult to sort out.
I downloaded the Windows 10 upgrade software and went about installing it, had to go out for a few hours but when I got back yesterday it was hanging on the checking for updates screen ... I thought this seems familiar, I'll just download the installation software too a flashdrive and load it from there, while I was selecting from a number of USB sticks I thought why not just save it to the external USB storage and then move it across to the chosen USB stick after that ... which proved to be a less than wise move, yes indeed!!!
Well long story a little shorter .... I realized the error of my ways instantly and began looking for a therapist to help me move past the last 3 weeks
I have run a few recovery programs on the drive and to my surprise (fingers crossed) it looks like around 70% of my data can be saved from the binary abyss!!
Do you know which of the dozen professional programs will retrieve thee most data, I'm reading Active Partition Recovery, Easus and Stellar are the front runners for purely savings the most of mine and my families (kids incl.) memories. I'm not sure about TestDisk it's probably me but the command prompt interface is starting to weigh on me a bit after a couple of long nights in the BIOS environment recently.
Appreciate and assistance you or any others could give.