Boot Repair Ate My Files

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by El Jay77, Sep 7, 2026 at 8:21 PM.

  1. El Jay77

    El Jay77 Private E-2

    Hey Peeps, Murphy;s back. I have a BIG problem, so I am hoping against hope that someone can provide a miracle, or at least help. Ok, I\ll cut to the chase. I moved, which necessitated getting a new ISP. The minute I plugged my desktop in I started having problems. So I thought I'd better protect my laptop, although I don't use it much at home. But of course, now I had to since my desktop was behaving badly. My laptop is a multiboot, with Win 10 #1, Win 7, and Win 10 #2, with Win 10 #1 being my main one, with 551 GB. So I put Zonealarm on my 2 Win 10's. Well, I didn't like it any better than I did years ago when I tried it, so I turned off the internet and using Hibit I uninstalled it from Win 10#1. It didn't seem like it uninstalled quite normally, so I booted into Win 10 #2, turned the internet on, and using Hibit again, I uninstalled it. All seemed to go smoothly. So I rebooted. With Win 10#1 being my default; it didn't boot. I don't remember the error message, but I think it was unaccessable boot device, or perhaps bad system config - one of the two. So I rebooted into Win 10 #2. No problem. I then booted into Win 7. Again no problem. I wasn't too worried, since I'd fixed many such problems in the past Not this time. I tried everything, and more. No dice. So I plugged in an Aomei boot stick I had laying around. It showed all 3 partitions had "irregular boot" situation. So, whether I should have or not, I ticked all 3 partitions and clicked repair. After a time it said that the job was completed. So I shut down, removed the boot stick, and started again. Win 10 #1 didn't boot, just as before. So I tried Win 10#2 and Win 7. Both booted seemingly ok. So, while in Win 10#2 I went to file explorer and lo and behold Win 10#1 was empty, except a few files/folders. To say I was fit to be tied is the understatement of the year. I tried a few things, then for the first time Testdisk failed me. So that is where I am now. I am looking for a program that can restore with a tree structure and more or less correct file names. Yeah, I know everyone will tell me about backups; I have 6 or so external drives, all full. And where I live it is not always possible to buy the HDD's I need, internal or external. Plus I am old on a fixed income with 2 kids in school, so most of my money goes to food, utilities, tuition, etc. I did manage to find an old HDD that I made room on and cloned the bad HDD in its present state. I know some will ask, so I have a Dell Latitude e6530. So, working with the clone, I tried and tried, using about every program I could find, but none worked; all they find are the few files/folders that Aomei put on after they erased it. I'm not quite ready to give up yet, but I am getting close. I always see ‘’buy a geek a coffee’’ on your site. Well, if you can help me, I’ll buy several coffees, and donuts as well. Thank you for your time and patience. And if I posted this in the wrong place, tell me and I will do my best to correct my error. Thanks again, and have a good day all.
     

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