My files are Gone!

I really need your help...

There was something wrong with my Ativ 8 and after heavy research I decided to download windows 8.1 for it to have a fresh start https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows8 . After downloading it to my external hard drive, I noticed the capacity went down from 3tb to only 32gb and non of my files were there. Only the files needed for the installation was there. The icon and the name also changed. What happened? Hoow can I fix it?

Hope you guys could help me out. The family pictures and videos, really can't lose them.

 

This is not just a download site but a way to convert the drive you indicate to an installation media. This will erase all other files and reformat the drive. You can try various undeelte tools but since you also probably wrote quite a bit of data you may be done for.

 

IIRC the Download tool gives you a prompt that everything on the USB media will erased.

 

Try Active@ Undelete

Out of the file recovery tools I used in the past, this was the only tool that properly worked for me. They also have Active@ Partition Recovery for those times when you accidentally format a drive, it can restore it back within seconds to what it was but this isn't your case in this scenario

I use the paid version though not sure how the demo or the free version work. The other free stuff like Recuva never worked for me

 

We can't do much here for you but you need to stop using it and take it to a computer shop to see what if any recovery can be undone as of now if you keep using it the chances to fix the problem becomes less and less.

 

An important lesson in why people need to keep frequent & multiple backups of their data...

As suggested above, you need to stop using your computer and, if the data is important enough, take it to a data recovery specialist. However, those aren't cheap by any means. If the data is a bit less important, you can try to recover it with tools like those mentioned previously, though personally I'd first make an exact copy of your drive to work on instead of the drive itself and try to recover using your favorite tools and another computer.

 

This is the reason on laptop I got a portable 2gig and 4gig ext HDD for storage offsite so any data loss is just the O/S and software install not your precious data/files you created ie..photos. If they can't find it let his be a dearly learning listen get a ext HDD 2gig or 4gig and offload data/files everyday into separate folders of date that way you can always go back should the copy you kept on the laptop corrupt you still have a working copy unless that is corrupted but if you do frequent backup this problem would present you no problems. Otherwise your left to the devices of computer shops or data recovery shops and their charges to find and not find data to recovery. Some software can unformat and recover but should it be wipe and clean then chances start to get slimmer.