HDD GURU FORUMS

Dear Expert

I have got Dell Laptop core i7 with windows 10 installed
Yesterday windows 10 was not booting only booting to the blue screen with many options (Repair,restore,,,,,etc) and I tried all of them and I tried safe mode and it didn't work as well
Left laptop at home and my cousin tried to do it without letting me know and he chose Dell recovery and backup (not sure about the name ) what happened basically he restored to a new fresh windows 10 but ending up losing data
What software/softwares should I use for the recovery ? I guess I need to boot it from a USB to do a recovery means not installing program on the hard drive ?

Thanks

Thanks Spildit for your advice and instructions

@Spildit

1 - Consider the use of a professional data recovery service or at least something like this : - https://www.ebay.com/itm/Logical-Data-R ... 3016948382 .

Is this someone or some business that is known to be legitimate / trustable, or just some random ad on Ebay ? It could be totally serious and trustworthy, but it seems a bit weird as a way of advertising that kind of service.

For the thread's author :
7) Even if the drive has no hardware issue (check the SMART status), doing a full clone or image prior to any recovery attempt is a wise safety measure.

As for 4) :

4 - REMOVE the drive from the computer and plug it to a DESKTOP with a OS and logical data recovery tools already installed. From there run a full scan on the drive for lost data in "raw recovery" mode as well as try to gather remains of the old file system and file allocation table to see if it's still possible to get file names and folder. Most likely it will not be possible but you should still be able to get some files back by content type (file signature).

Normally even after a complete Windows reinstall / recovery, most of the data and metadata for user files are still intact (the new MFT area should be located at the same spot as the former one, and most of the Windows system files should be written / recorded where the former ones originally were, while the total volume of Windows files is at most equal to what it was, most likely less since it grows over time when updates are installed and temporary files are created and so on). A few years ago I purchased a used laptop computer, which had been supposedly wiped / restored to factory state, and just for fun I scanned the HDD with a data recovery software (most likely R-Studio and GetDataBack, I was comparing the two at the time) : almost all the former user data was still there, with the directory structure, file names and whatnot.
But things don't always happen normally in this world where Murphy's Law is almost as unavoidable as the laws of physics. I hope that you don't end up with that kind of mess... é_è
https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=36574
https://superuser.com/questions/1309727 ... -encrypted
https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37894

Listing is mine. So it's a service provided by me !

Oh, sorry then ! You must indeed have at least a vague idea of how serious and trustworthy you are. But perhaps it should have been made more clear to the potential client.
I had never seen a service sold on Ebay (except for teh lolz), has it become common practice lately ?