Windows 10: can i restore my harddrive files to prior to win10 install?

my son accidentally installed win 10 and wiped out my harddive. Can I restore my files from my harddrive ?

:)

 

Activation Key recovery

Hullo,

I had a windows 7 activation key and upgraded to win 10 successfully and it was activated but the box with it got destroyed in a fire and can not install a fresh windows 10 on the new hard drive because it asks me for the activation key and i couldn't view
it in win10 prior to the harddisk failure on the same computer. What can You advise i do?? Because win10 installation on the faulty harddrive is flawless but Installing the same windows10 on a new harddrive is impossible.

Can you please help??

Thanks

Paul

 

Fresh Install win10

I have 2 computers, both upgraded to win10. Both registered. One of my computers has a failed harddrive, So i need to replace it and add another harddrive. Do I have to buy a win10 to install, or can i reinstall win10 on that computer?

And if i can reinstall, how?

 

If you have no recently made OS and data [partitions?] backups, you might be in for a long uphill climb. Does W10 offer a button to revert back to the previous Windows? If you had your stuff within Libraries/My Documents area, I'm hoping the revert will work, and bring back your earlier Libraries/My Documents area [along with your data].
It's possible the more Windows is running, the more over-writing may be happening. Perhaps wait for others who just might have good ideas for you.

 

Windows 10 - Go Back to Previous Windows - Windows 10 Forums

If your son wiped the hard drive to clean install Windows 10, then you can only restore your previous files from your backup image that you regularly create on an external storage device.

 

If your files are important to you they need to have at least one backup copy, 2 or more backup copies for files of particular importance. Backups should be made when all is well as after an incident may be too late. Data recovery is often problematic and cannot be relied on.

 

Did he wipe it , or was it an upgrade? , is there a windows.old folder anywhere?

 

It was an upgrade ...from the pop up that was coming up in the bottom right corner

 

That should not have wiped the hard drive and your user account and all the files in it should have been preserved and carried forward into Windows 10 as well as any programs/apps you had installed.

 

All my folders are empty? Pictures are gone? Neat receipts are empty? Any suggestions where everything would be stored?
Thank you

 

It looks like the drive not wiped , you can roll back to your previous windows or recovery your image backup if you backup. Your files will be find . If it doesn't work , put the hard drive in another computer then use recovery tool , if the partition has been deleted, I think you can refer to this and most software should be able to handle that case too.

 

You have 28 days to roll back the upgrade (tutorial says 31 days ... but I state 28 days to be safe)

See: Windows 10 - Go Back to Previous Windows

 

i searched for windows.old and no matches in file explorer? should i search somewhere else?
when you install win 10 is there an option to format the drive that he may have selected?
Thank you so much

 

Show hidden files (explorer options - view tab) might help

The upgrade process requires a running OS, so I doubt that he initially performed a Clean install (wiping the drive) - that would require some technical skills.

see post# 3 and post# 10

 

A very real concern, I can relate! Because folder/file recovery using usb or dvd Puppy Linux or WinPE boot with attached external HD -- consider finding a local computer guru who can walk you through the necessary steps, or do them for you, and perhaps you can recover the folders/files.