I tried to condense the situation into a clearer narrative. I upgraded my Windows OS to 64-bit and used a media creation tool on my external hard drive. After completion, all data was erased, leaving only 30 GB available. The main points are summarized for easier understanding.
Disk management screenshot would be helpful. 1. Perform a clean install by booting from the USB drive. 2. If it's an external HDD, use Disk Management to check for issues. It seems something might have gone wrong, possibly causing data loss. You may have lost a lot of information, so unplug all drives except the one where Windows is being installed. Just restore your backups.
The external drive is being formatted, erasing any data unless you attempt recovery tools. It sets up a maximum ~32 GB partition (less if the device is smaller, like a 16 GB flash drive) to store the installer. You’ll need to restore it to a 1 TB format. It’s quite confusing. I’m sorry for Microsoft.
Wow, that's crazy. I only changed it to 64-bit because Fortnite on the same external drive didn't work with 32-bit. It took me about three days just to download it. The internet is really slow sometimes. Thanks a lot!
Are there additional details you'd like to focus on from this drive? There are options to restore some of the lost information.
You seem to value the information highly. The most effective approach is to disconnect the device and forward it to a data restoration company. If that's not possible, I can walk you through the process, though you risk further loss.
Performing a clean boot using an USB drive first could influence the outcome. This approach aligns with the goal of the Bonanza project. Since I can't send it to a recovery service right now, and the disk is fully formatted except for media from the creation tool, I don’t have much data left. It seems like I’m at a low-risk point here.