Bootable Flash Drives Issue

In the fall of 2024, I had a Windows meltdown, and had to reinstall. For reasons I can't explain, I had to reinstall 5 or 6 times before I managed to get a stable installation. I was aware of a few data issues which would need to be addressed at some point, but the need was not urgent, and I was tired of grappling with computing devices.

A few days ago, I decided to address one of them, specifically, the disappearance of all the files in my TV folder. I don't have a massive collection of TV shows, but there are some which I like and would like to watch again.

As a longtime user of Hiren's Boot CD - I was probably using it 15 years ago or more - I downloaded the newest iso and the latest version of Rufus, flashed Hiren's, restarted my computer, set the BIOS - UEFI, actually - to boot from the flash drive, and in short order, Hiren's was open on my monitor. Unfortunately, it was nonresponsive to the mouse and the keyboard.

I tried again. It responded to two mouse clicks and then crashed. I tried flashing Hiren's to several other flash drives I have including one of fairly recent manufacture that I had never used, to no avail. I tried tinkering with Rufus settings. I tried cussing at my machine and the Computing Gods, with great creativity and intensity. And then, finally, my machine started skipping the POST screen and booting directly to Windows.

I pulled the CMOS battery and got back to work. I googled various relevant search terms looking for advice. One suggested disabling Secure Boot, another suggested disabling CSM support, yet another suggested both. I tried different combinations of flash drives. I tried cussing at it even more, and I ended up having to pull my CMOS battery again.

Since what I had read suggested that Lazesoft is the best data recovery tool on Hiren's, I went to the FS site and found the iso, flashed it using Rufus, and got to work. The short version of my attempts and results? Pretty much everything that happened with my attempts to get Hiren's to work - different flash drives, different settings, pulling CMOS batteries, and so forth - happened again with Lazesoft. The only thing which was different was that I was cussing more often, and with greater intensity and creativity.

At this point, I am fresh out of ideas. All the relevant specs can be found in the relevant section of my profile. Can anybody help me get Razesoft working on my machine via Hiren's or directly, or recommend a different data recovery process which holds some reasonable chance of success? All advice will be greatly appreciated, except any recommending a baseball bat. It's already crossed my mind.

Assuming Windows is installed on an SSD and the data was on the drive you reinstalled. Your chance of recovery is very low. On old HDD data sectors were merely marked as free and data was left intact making recovery easier. SSDs have a feature called trim which activity erases the data when it's marked deleted. Plus it sounds like this system was reimaged a year ago. Even on a HDD the longer you wait the less likely you can recover anything successfully. Your chance at this point is virtually 0. Also you don't need to boot to anything other than the OS to attempt recovery; however, you will need a second storage device to recover to. Recuva, testdisk to name a few are free and good options of software to recover data

You have some serious hw problem with your USB, I cannot know if it's just a port, a controller (this computer has 2 hw USB controllers, one USB2 and one USB3) or what. It isn't a drivers issue for your difficulties reinstalling Windows and at bootup.

You have 2 SATA HDDs, a USB HDD plugged to the mains and a "USB Device 9.09 TB". It could be a USB power problem depending on what is the latter. I'd detach your USB drives temporarily to diagnose the USB problem.

The disappearance of files could have many causes, but it isn't way a normal issue. Idk why do you take out your CMOS battery so many times or if it's related.

I wouldn't expect cooling problems with a 65W processor and a 70W GPU. I had an old system with those exact consumptions that consumed 190W max from the mains, what should be 160 W for the parts at most (this what counts for the PSU). You don't way need a high-end case but it should always have a decent exhaust fan.

At the time the files were lost, if they were still in folders on the drive IMO the best manual data recovery tool is booting from a LIVE Linux distro . I prefer Mint or Ubuntu as they are very user friendly.

If they had been accidentally deleted you could put the drive into an extender or dock and used Recuva or Lazesoft.

Also, had you made regular images of your system you would not have lost any files. This would have been your best solution.
There are many third party imaging apps and everyone has his own opinion of what he uses but AFIC, the best free one out there right now Hasleo Backup Suite and the absolute best paid one is Macrium.

Now, if I am reading your thread correctly, You had a problem, you clean installed windows in 2024 and now you want to try to recover files that were on the same drive that was overwritten by the clean install. Is that correct.?

If so, you can forget it. You have used that same drive for another year and data has been overwritten many times since then.