Windows 10: Missing files after switching to new drive for boot

So here is an interesting conundrum I'm curious if anyone can solve.

Back at Xmas time I bought a new SSD, installed into my laptop and cloned my hard drive partition to it. I have been booting from the SSD since by manual changing the BOOT priority to boot from the (F*Smile drive - SSD

I have been running that drive since, and all new information, files, programs etc have been written to that drive.

Last week I decided to finally wipe the old (C*Smile since it as been sitting unused for a month, I could use it as storage space.
I used a Linux live cd, and the GParted application to wipe the (C*Smile and not touching the (F*Smile which had all the new information on it.

When I rebooted into windows the drive letter of my SSD was changed to (C*Smile as it was now the only BOOT device located. However a number of my files, applications that I have installed to the drive since I began using it back in January have disappeared.
Nothing was changed, deleted or wiped from this SSD drive, they just seemed to have disappeared.
I have tried unhidding files and also used Recuva to do a scan for any deleted recoverable files. I've also booted back into Linux and tried to search that way. They do not show up anywhere at all.

I'm perplexed, any help recovering these files would be greatly appreciated.

:)

 

Windows 10 File History

I disabled temporarily the file history because i needed the designated drive for something else.

After reinstalling this drive I wanted to switch it on again but there is missing the switch and the other controls. Only the "Other Options" link is there.

How can I restore my setting?

 

File History Win 10 - Delete Old File History Files?

After copying my old file history files to a new file history drive as part of switching file history to a new drive, can I delete all of the (old) file history folders and files off of that old drive?

 

Do they show in add remove are the folders there? It could be they were written to the old c

 

After cloning the Old HDD to the new SSD, you should have unplugged the old HDD and made sure the SSD would boot properly without the old HDD attached. At that point, the new SSD would be drive C: and any new programs and files would be saved to that C: drive from this point forward.
You then can plug in your Old HDD and remove it from the Boot order in the Bios, moving the SSD to first boot device and still boot to the SSD and it should still be C:
Since you didn't do that, any new programs you installed were saved to drive C:, Your Old HDD, and written in the Windows registry as such. Hopefully you have a backup.

 

I am certain that they were not written to the HDD as the C: drive
Whenever I accessed the files/folders I would have to go through the F tree. Also while in Linux I double checked the files were indeed stored on the F: drive

 

Its actually not the program files I am worried about I can reinstall programs. I had some file folders that were important. They were indeed on the SSD as I double checked to make sure before I formatted the old HDD. Unfortunately the one file I need to have a back up for was a newly created file and I had forgot to make a back up before carrying on with other work

 

Boot into Windows on the SSD, in File Explorer go to the Toolbar to the View tab, put a check in the box for Hidden Items and File Name Extensions. And then press the Win key+S and do a Search for a specific file name or extension (ie) search for *.txt. *.mp3 or whatever file extension if you aren't sure of the name.

 

So I couldn't find them this way, but I was able to find missing files through the files > recent list....however the destination path says
"F:\Program Files"
which would have been the location on the SSD before formating the old HDD, now the SSD has been renamed to C:\
can I simply change the destination path?

 

When you cloned the HDD to the SSD and booted from the SSD, it WAS the C: drive! Your F: drive at the time was the HDD, not the SSD. When you were saving and using files to/from F: drive, it was the HDD, and when you wiped the HDD, you wiped out those files.

 

no that is incorrect. The F: drive was my Samsung SSD, always listed as such. The drive sizes are also different, so there was a clear distinction as well as a difference in the labelling.

 

You said that "now the SSD has been renamed to C:" so I suspect your cloning did not go thru well. Whichever disk/partition you BOOT from Windows labels C:\. It's possible that all this time you had both disks in, it was BOOTing from one disk but running Windows from another one.

 

So, according to your OP - you had a HDD, which when it was booting as the only drive was C: drive. Then you cloned it to an SSD, and when you booted Windows from the SSD, the SSD running Windows on it was F: drive. That's quite a cloning program that would change all the registry entries required to run Windows from F: drive. In normal circumstances, as @CountMike points out, when Windows loads, the partition containing that Windows system is C: drive. Load Windows on drive 0 - it gets C: and drive 1 will get a different letter. Load Windows on drive 1 - it gets C: and drive 0 will get a different letter.

I have yet to see a cloning program that will clone a Windows partition and make all the changes to the Windows registry to change it's drive letter to make it get something other than C: drive when booted into.

 

I see what is going on now. After cloning the HDD to the SSD, when you rebooted, the SSD became C: and the HDD became F:. You must not have changed the boot order in the Bios and Windows booted from the F: HDD and not the SSD. You continued to boot from the HDD F: and save files to it, then you removed the HDD and now your files are missing or rather they were never saved to the SSD to begin with.

 

I suspect that is probably correct. But doesn't explain the missing documents or document folders that were saved specifically to the SSD