Documents deleted from all folders!

[Darryl2323]

Don't know much about computers so if there is a fix, I need laymen directions please lol. 

I’m running Windows 10 64-bit, Pavilion x360

Local Disk C was full. So full I couldn't open a PDF. 

I had thousands of documents in the documents folder.

Most of the documents were inside of named folders and some documents were outside of named folders. 

I deleted a few of the folders but literally deleted all of the documents that were inside of named folders, so now I have hundreds of named folders completely empty with no documents.

HERE’S HOW I SCREWED UP…

I clicked the Local Disk C, clicked users, clicked a folder named darkt, clicked documents, selected everything, and deleted them…WHY GOD WHY?!

The thought process was, the documents in Local Disk C are duplicates maybe, so if I erase them in Local Disk C, I’ll still have the documents folder under This PC…WRONG.

I also thought, worst case scenario, if all documents are deleted from My PC and Local Disc C, I could just go to the recycle bin and restore them, WRONG again.

Many of the folders and literally every document inside of labeled folders and loose documents not in named folders were deleted and were not in the recycle bin…12 THOUSAND PLUS DOCS!!!

Hoped on You Tube for help and downloaded Recuva.

Does me no good because the thousands of files I deleted are going back into the documents folder but not into the named documents folder so it does me no good to retrieve thousands of documents, many with the same exact name, because I simply cannot go through thousands of documents and pair them with the right named folders.

Example: Folder named ABC, docs in folder name DEF, XYZ, etc. Well I have hundreds of different named folders with the same exact document names DEF, XYZ, etc. So thousands of previously deleted DEF, XYZ, etc documents show up in documents, and when this happens for thousands of documents across hundreds of folders, I simply cannot pair them.

I’m hoping I’m explaining this right and someone out there has a solution to RESTORE MY NAMED folders with the same exact documents that were deleted from them.

I have an external hard drive. Before I deleted the files, I dragged the Local Disk C and I dragged the documents folder to the external hard drive name Expansion Drive D. The files were also deleted there. I’m so confused and have no idea why they’d be deleted from the external hard drive as well…ugh!!

I have no idea how I’m going to run my business…somebody save me from myself lol.  

[WAWood]

@Darryl2323 

OK, so first of all, you have to connect either an external drive to write the recovered files and folders to, or a large enough USB stick to hold all of them.  You can not recover to the same drive -- it simply will not work.

Second, this is the best file recovery app bar none -- I have used it numerous time to recovery GB of file information -- but you have to pay for it, there is no free version:  https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

It will scan the drive for folders and files and will present a file structure, complete with the file system hierarchy.  So, it it finds the files, you will be OK with lots of files with the same name because it will recover the folders, too.

Good Luck

And -- once you get these back, make an offline backup -- because next time, if your drive fails, you might not be able to get these back.