Lost hundreds of keys -- [Windows reset]

recuva, deep scan, let it scan a whole day.

I've managed to get some deleted files back with Recuva (free version is fine).
It's not clear from your post, but make sure you scan the whole hard drive or partition, not just one folder.

EDIT: Ninja'd 😏
But one more thing, stop using your PC for anything else until you've scanned for the lost file(s), otherwise you could accidentally overwrite the area of your hard drive where the lost files are.

That's why I use a cloud service.
Not sure which folders get saved or if anything from that partition would remain. You can try recuva or similar, but depending on the file extension it might have a harder time locating anything.

Such a reset on the same partition is never a good idea, i always buy a new HDD and install the system fresh on that drive, simply because i barely have to do such a thing and when a OS configuration is several years old, i'm used to get newer and proper hardware with better speeds too, besides that free disk space is always good to have.

The old OS for that matter, you can always go back to it and fetch whatever you want, no need to worry about backups and other headaches, it saves a lot of time.

That doesn't help you getting this one file back but maybe it helps you avoiding this next time.

The only thing you can try is forensic utilities or simply a technician with forensic tools, depending on which reset method you used but even then, the windows.old folder is not a full backup or 1:1 copy of the old partition, it usually only contains files that have changed related to operation of Windows only, like when upgrading, downgrading, preserving the possibility to go back to a previously installed Windows version.

Given the very specific format around XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX a custom scan would be most likely to find the keys if they still exists. Unfortunately the small size and fragmented nature of the file(assuming it was just txt) makes it probable that it has already been overwritten.

Did your files automatically sync to one drive? You could look there.

See if you can get a copy of GetDataBack, I've seen it recover files other programs could not.

If not try with Recuva, set the filter to txt files only and the location as the folder your file was into.

Good luck!

wow dat sux hope u can get it back

I accidentally formatted a whole drive not long ago and was able to get part of it back thanks to Recuva, here's the free version: https://www.piriform.com/recuva

Don't you have the keys separately elsewhere? Like mails, PMs or something? I mean, you must have gotten them somewhere?

Boot from Linux recovery stick, grep "[A-Z0-9]\{5\}-[A-Z0-9]\{5\}-[A-Z0-9]\{5\}" /dev/sda > keydata.txt (find out the correct drive/partition with mount). If there's any key-shaped data still on the disk, in any way, shape or form, this will find it, even if the file metadata itself is gone. Along with a lot of other crap, probably, but hey. You can probably read a good book while this is happening, as reading a whole drive isn't fast.

"my biggest mistake in my life"
Never marry, my friend.

One suggestion, Install Google Drive on your PC and store important things in it. Google Drive can also sync folders that are important to you if you check them. This way you can lose nothing that's important.

Catch me on steam, I can help you with data recovery..

The more you use the disk, the less are your chances of recovering any particular file. The best options are either to boot from another media, or take the drive out and put it in a another machine as a secondary drive. Recovery software do give different results, so trying more than one is recommended. GetDataBack (trial) and TestDisk (free) at least used to be good options.

I'm sorry for what happened. It's a bad feeling, when you lose important stuff.

I've recently needed to perform a system recovery with keeping the files option selected. The whole folder of my user file was in there and I restored documents and appdata with no problems. I thought that Windows.old would keep all the user files. No?

maybe you can contact the sellers of your game keys. of course it depends if they were legit or not. they could give you the informations.

oh damn. :[ hope you can get them back

View attached image.

at least you didn't delete the fucking MBR like i did

I feel your pain.

If someone hasn't already recommended it, you might want to switch to something like Google Docs/Spreadsheets. That way, you won't lose the files if something happens to your PC.

In the future I suggest you save that txt file on dropbox, onedrive, googledrive, etc. That way it is always synced and backed up. As I've learned too lol

Are you really sure that it's not in windows.old? Since recovery programs likely won't find it if it's not actually deleted

Lesson learned already i guess..
But this is why i always have a separate drive for windows, and ALL data etc is stored on other drives

Everyone has already given advice, so I'll just give you my sympathy. I'm sorry that you've lost this file. I've lost important data without a backup and it really sucks. There is an empty feeling, and a helpless feeling knowing that there's nothing you can do about it.

That's really unfortunate - but, if you look on the bright side, the only thing you're really losing is time. It'd be another thing entirely if you had NO way of recovering those unactivated keys, and then you'd lost however much money you spent on them.

Just take this as a learning experience and try not to do it again.