Windows 10: Windows 10 performed an auto update and wiped my HDD

I shut down my computer a few days ago and went to bed. The next morning the computer sat on the windows logo with rotating dots on startup for an hour. I shut it down, cleared cmos, reverted bios to default, and tried again. The same thing happened. I tried again and it said "repairing disk". I let it finish and I got in. I shut it down that night and the same thing happened the next morning. I did the same steps to get back in and I went to store some files in my HDD (startup disk and game disk are SSD) and found that it was a RAW unformatted disk. The update wiped BOTH of my HDD, but left all 3 of my SSD alone. I have data separation for this reason, but I never expected for my storage HDD AND my backup HDD to be wiped because of an update I didn't even download.


I've effectively lost 1.2 TB of personal data, images, videos, and documents. Thank god I had my crypto wallets on backup flash drives and my linux machine or I would also be out THOUSANDS of dollars. The sad part is I lost the only copies of some images of my deceased friends. I am frustrated to no end. Microsoft will never be able to retrieve this data and will not compensate me for the problem they caused.


I am leaving this here as a notice to all users. I've purchased a very large NAS drive and a new router that supports it and migrated every bit of sensitive data left on this machine. I suggest you all do the same. If it's important, don't attach it to a Windows PC. As long as auto update if forced, your data is not safe. Please protect your information by moving it out of the reach of Windows. Don't even have that data attached to your Windows machine. Move it to NAS or another OS on a different machine. RAID and data separation will not save you. I've had tons of hard drives fail over many years, yet I have never had a data loss as big as this. Lightning strikes, PSU failures, and data corruption were all less destructive than a forced OS update. I've even got this thing hooked up to a $250 heavy duty backup UPS.


If you have a data backup, UNPLUG IT NOW or lose EVERYTHING.


As far as I can tell, this doesn't affect SSD. Yet. I can't speak to M2 drives though.

:)

 

Windows 10

no, you can't go back..
I suggest creating a backup image of your os drive

 

unlock hdd

Hi Johan,

It is possible that your
HDD was unreadable
causing the error message to appear. We recommend that you perform these troubleshooting steps and check if there are any changes:

• 
  Shutdown
  your
  PC.
  
• 
  Unhooked
  the
  HDD
  and
  turn on
  your
  PC.
  
• 
  Reconnect
  your
  HDD
  and
  restart
  your
  PC.
  

If the issue persists, we suggest that you contact your
laptop/computer's manufacturer
for further assistance.

Update us on how it goes.

Regards.

 

unlock hdd