Windows 10: Restore previous partitions of external HDD

My windows 10 crashed while my external hard drive was running. When I rebooted it deleted all the partitions on external drive and created a single new partition. How to revert this and restore the data from it?

:)

 

External HDD Partitions

I have an external HDD. It had multiple partitions. I removed partitions with this procedure: Press the "Start" button, type "diskmgmt.msc" and press "Enter." 3. Right-click the existing partition on the external hard drive, select "Delete Volume" and
choose to remove the partition. I did this to remove all partitions and NOW the computer doesn't recognize the drive in file explorer. What can I do?

 

W7 Hard drive partition issue

to get rid of that 100 meg windows partition that setup creates for you on a new install on a blank hdd:

- press shift+f10 when on the partition management screen in setup <-- this opens a command prompt
- diskpart <-- start the windows command line partition management tool
- list disk <--- list the installed hdds in this computer for the next step
- select disk 0 <- might have to replace 0 with the number of the correct disk
- clean <-- this will erase all data on the disk you selected one step up- dont use the wrong disk!
- create partition primary <- creates a primary partition taking up all space on the drive, adjust the command if necessary
- exit, exit to exit diskpart and the command prompt
- click refresh in partition manager and select your newly created partition and install to that

 

File History Windows 10 searching for an old external HDD and will not restore previous version.

I'm trying to restore a previous version of my documents folder and File History won't restore to any location. Unfortunately, a sub-folder of the documents folder was deleted and then permanently deleted from the recycling bin. When I try to 'Restore to',
File History keeps looking for an old external HDD that no longer exists.

The error I get is:

TOSHIBA EXT (D (E:\) is disconnected. Reconnect the drive and try again.

I've tried renaming external HDDs but it doesn't work. When I go to set up file history and try to set add a new drive, no matter what HDD i plug in, nothing appears. I've tried multiple slots and nothing shows up. When I open the drive in windows explorer,
they show up and I can consume the files without issue.

Unfortunately, the laptops HDD is only 110GB and the restore needs approx 4.5 GB of extra space to restore. I've checked and there's nothing much more I can delete from the C:. The restore file is over 15Gb.

I've read through similar issues on this site and followed the recommendations. I've tried downloading Ease US, Recuva, and other apps to access the old restore file but they don't find the previous version. The folder was deleted approx two weeks ago now.

Is there a path I can navigate towards to access the restore files? That might work and allow me to copy them. Really seeking the ability to restore the files to the external HDD though and get File History working that way.

Thank you in advance.