Windows 10: Windows.old automatically deleted the day after installing Windows 10

Hi, I joined this site just for this issue.

Here's the whole story.

I had Windows 7 installed on my computer (Dell Precision M6500) for a long time, but due to a stupid mistake I made (removing and then destroying a secondary HDD that contained the System Reserved partition, which I didn't know until after I had done the fact), I got locked out of the OS and was unable to boot. My friends (who are a lot smarter than me) told me that I would have to reinstall the OS to get my personal data back (all of which was on the primary and locked out HDD)

I don't have a Windows 7 install disc but I do have a Windows 10 one, so I used it to install Windows 10 on the machine and did so without wiping/formatting the HDD, obviously so I could get my data (over several hundred gigabytes of photos, videos, documents, etc) back.

All of this happened just yesterday. The Windows 10 install seemed to go without a hitch and all of my data was in the Windows.old folder as expected.

I hadn't gotten around to relocating all of it from the folder yet, and was actually in the middle of scrolling through folders to make sure everything was still there when I got an error message saying the folder was unavailable. So, I went to the previous folder I was in, and got the same error message. Then I went to the root windows.old folder and, once again, got the same message.

I then went back to the main C:\ drive and noticed that the windows.old folder was completely gone. I didn't do anything to delete it.

I looked online and saw that Windows 10 automatically deletes the windows.old folder 30 days after installing, but it has only been approximately 18 hours since Windows 10 finished installing.

So, is there any way to recover my data without using third-party data recovery software? Or is that my only chance at getting it back? Thanks.

:)

 

Installing Windows 10 using Windows 7 key

Nope, you need to install Windows 10 first and make sure the Windows 7 key is transferred to your Windows account after you've installed Windows 10 (not quite sure how that works). I missed the last step and I could not activate Windows 10 after a re-install... Microsoft seem to have done everything they can to make it a PITA. Also, it's technically too late to do this now anyhow, as the upgrade offer has expired. But KMSPico works quite well...

As for getting rid of Windows, delete the Windows folder.

 

windows xp installation and dual core am

could someone please list the steps they follow to install windows with a dual core processor and windows xp service pack to. I'm reletively new to amd dual core and i feel i'm missing a step. All help will be appreciated. thanx

 

C windows installer folder - Delete?

He can do symbolic link redirection and move the files in it to a different location. *Wink
Better try it out in a virtual of first. Just a suggestion.

Like:
First move everything in c:\windows\installer to d:\installercache
Then delete c:\windows\installer folder
Then type this in command mode as admin
mklink /d c:\windows\installer d:\installercache

Removing those installer files is a bad idea. it might prevent you from updating or uninstalling apps.