Make a backup. I am afraid. Prayers welcome.

Reserved

hoard>hardware ages over time or fails>sudden loss of data>become depressed for days>hoard

story of my life

The same happened to me some months ago, I lost two drives (one SSD, one HDD), so many "unfinished projects" (programming rather than music), notes, files, digital hoard, etc.. I know the pain too well :(

Yikes. RIP. What happened, has happened. Its fine, you'll recover (nothing intended there😬) somehow.
As for me, I did get a heartattack in the recent months, when my laptop wasnt turning on or rather looping at the start. Probably becz I dropped it a couple of times in that week. That issue went away, but I was afraid that id lost my analysis and raw data. Backed it up to the cloud there and then. Unfortunately I didn't get into the habit of taking regular backups. Maybe i will now!

i know how you feel.... i should make backups of stuff.... i recently lost a phone and a lot of valuable stuff on it for me, a phone or pc can be replaced but whats on it not, i lost many sentimental pictures of pets thats passed away, stuff like that but if i would lose my pc i would litteraly lose money (mostly steam keys i have saved) and other stuff

It is no use crying over split milk.🍼
There are many words similar to this on earth.😭

🙄Let's think about it the other way around.

You have been given the opportunity to create something better than your previous work.🍀

I hope this experience will contribute to your creation.

[The following is for those who have not backed up and is not for you]
SSDs have faster read/write performance, but the limit is much lower than HDs.
Backup to external media will be necessary.
Compared to hard disks, I think it is more common for SSD data to be erased by electrical shocks.
In the case of HDs, the data can often be recovered, although the HD base is usually replaced because the base is damaged in the same environment.

But in any case, data backup is essential, and many people write out their data to external media each time.
(It's not funny because the very act of backing up can cause a breakdown.)

For example, in CLIP STUDIO PAINT and Illustrator, the forbidden act is to save directly to an external HD.
Some music editing software also recommends saving the data to the main unit and then copying it, but this became a hassle and there were people who falsely claimed that the hardware was the cause because the data was not saved on the backup media.
...Remember, someone else will be annoyed by that excuse....
If you have software that you intend to patronize, be sure to read through the notes. You can avoid ruin.

It's a shame, usually they can recover datas even from a very damaged HDD.

i'm crossing all my fingers for you !

View attached image.

You cannot reverse what happened but the experience is still in you. You can create something even better.

For backups, it's a good idea to make it a habit, a monthly routine. You can set reminders for this, but perform that when it's time. Never neglect it. Also, always have more than one backup. If you have the instruments, it's much better to automate things (for example, syncthing is a nice tool). And one of the backups should be a good old HDD. Recoverability of HDDs is much much better than SSDs and it's worse with NVMe drives.

You'll mourn this for a while but I wish you good luck for your future creations.

I have lost two drives in a space of 15years or so. Neither were recovered. Most was just downloaded stuff, games, music but even some obscure TV shows that I managed to track down, never to be seen again. But also a large portion of emails, quite a few years of them (saved locally from defunct internet provider), photos that I can't find anymore, personal stuff.. unrecoverable. It was devastating, both times..
I wish I could say something that would help, nothing really helps in this situation..
..but the thought that.. YES.. you can still do more, you can still create, you have the ability, you are, basically, still alive! And I know it may sound cringy or otherwise, but it is the truth.
You most likely don't want to hear anything right now and you go through infinite negative thoughts and what-ifs, and that is also a process. And when it passes, with a calmer mind (yes it will happen, in time), you may revisit this thread and may start thinking more positively again.. and you can start creating again, from a new perspective, with new thoughts and, yes, experiences..
Stay sane..

Or 5% may turn out 100%.. and you can keep this as just a reminder of things that can happen..

Bummer, SSD is a nanoscale device using principles of quantum physics. If retrieval with software tools fails I assume data recovery is complicated. Even an electron microscope wouldn't help much as structures are so tiny.

I don't think there is anything I can say that will suit this tragedy, but I still wish to give you a commiserating pat to mourn the loss. The loss of beautifully inspired creation into the petty digital void. Some may frown on me for making this comparison, but from reading your description above, I vicariously feel the dread in the gut and the loss in something so special must feel like losing a child in the womb. But once you recover from it (we all can recover from something as long as it's not our own deaths), you may just find a new spark of inspiration waiting for you in the unlikeliest of moments, and create something even better like Kappa & others said above.

I too know I really should go do a backup. I even have the software ready for it. But the initial backup size of what I have in my laptop would be over 10x my available HDD space, and just thinking about that, I have no idea how to even begin, short of buying yet another HDD, of which current physical space and funds would advise against. My very old backups take up stacks of CDs and the newer-old ones take up big blocks of externally-powered HDDs that lie in the dust somewhere. From newer laptops onwards, I no longer do backups because it just takes up so much resources exponentially, especially if you follow multiple-backup practices like the 3-2-1 strategy. I do have the most critical GBs stored in the free cloud spaces like OneDrive, GDrive, etc, so I just hope for the best with that. But it's never a good feeling when we inevitably lose our belongings, be it digital or not. I truly hope the light of hope shines soon for you again!

Sad to hear what happened. Most of us have "that important thing" that would be the worst thing if we lose it because a disk failed, or whatever.

Over the course of my life I've had several HDs and one SSD converted into a brick. The last one was that SSD. It suddenly wouldn't respond. Reboot? No drive. No system. Used a GParted livecd, nothing. And yes I went full panic. Lost a lot of personal stuff, no money to replace it, etc. So I turned computer off and went to bed quite depressed. Next day I got some money from someone and I was ready to dress and go out for a new SSD, but nothing would recover what I had there. As I often do, I "tried once more". And miracle! The disc booted! So without hesitation I made a full image backup into one of the HDs, and a bootable CD to recover the image (Macrium Reflect free version, so useful over the years). After that I examined the SSD and I don't remember what program I used it said it was in poor health.

I went for the new SSD, booted from the recovery CD, transferred the image, and I had the system just like the previous day. Maybe some data was lost. Minimal consequences. The old SSD never booted up again. I still have it somewhere. But whenever I see somewhere someone telling that they put the SSD in the fridge to cool it down and then it lived enough to recover stuff, I believe it. I still believe it would boot if it's cool (room temperature).

I wish your story would finish like mine. Really. I know that gut feeling. It's quite horribly terrible.

Aftermath: I set up a few things. A little program (Create Synchronicity) to create mirror copies of important folders in an HD that had no important folders. I had daily copies, but after a severe mistake I made both daily and weekly copies. And every first of month I would do some cleaning so the backups would be smaller, then I'd make mirror folder refreshing, then compressed copies of those folders, already neatly arranged to do so, add an image of the system drive, and put into a pendrive. I have done it for +5 years until this one, because this year I mainly don't care about anything much anymore. I've still done one or two in the way. The daily and weekly copies are still being done automatically. In these years I've had to go back to one of those copies, either of the folders or of the system image, so yes the effort is worth it.

As I said I only use three programs. Create Synchronicity is somewhat outdated but it does what I want in the way I want. Programmable copies of certain folders. I also use the free version of Macrium Reflect 7. You can make a recovery CD or USB of your system, with your drivers and everything, to boot up and inspect an image or transfer it to a drive. It also can mount an image as another disc so you can inspect and copy from it all you want. It respects UAC but never got in the way for a single user computer. And finally 7zip to make the compressed copies of the folders. It's all redundantly redundant but in a way that minimizes losses in case of disaster.

Your loss is very bad, and I've heard similar stories. The thing is, will you learn? Also, as NeverOnline remarked, you can create more. You might do things inspired or close to what you already composed. Yes you lost your creation, but you can create more. I wish you the best.