Any way to recover files that were on a external hdd I made as a Win11 boot disk?

I am just sick. When I was preparing to install Win 11, it asked if I wanted to create a usb boot disk. I didn't have a usb flash drive that was large enough but it gave me the option to chose my external drive. I chose it and clicked continue. Long story short, All I'm seeing on my 3tb external drive are the boot files. It never prompted me that all the files would be deleted or the drive would be formatted before I clicked continue. I have/had over 1tb of music and video files on the disk. I ran Recuva and it found about a dozen of mp3s. Is there any way to recover my files? I think they are still on the drive because it didn't take very long to create, not nearly long enough to delete all the files, but I just can't see or access them. And no I didn't back up the drive because I USED it as a back drive. Please help if possible.
TIA

Hi and welcome to the forum
I found this and it might be of some assistance