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Hello everyone,
I need your help to restore some specific files. I wasn't sure whether to post in the Partition Recovery or File undelete forum. If I am wrong here, please move the thread to the correct forum.

Now to my problem.
I had a dual boot with Windows 10 and Linux (Nobara) running on an SSD. I actually only needed the Windows for playing games and for the Smart Home configuration (ETS5). Since I didn't do anything in Windows for a long time after configuring the Smart Home and was increasingly using Linux, I thought I would use the memory from Windows for the Linux system and deleted the partitions and added them to the existing BTRFS partition. I forgot that the project files are not backed up. I now want to restore them, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Since there is still a relatively large amount of free space, it is possible that it has not yet been overwritten. Of course, you can't be sure.

I have already tried several settings under testdisk, but apparently there was never the right one, because it only restored dll and exe files with a cryptic name (f196701560 for example). The restored files were also not stored in the same folder structure as in Windows, but in consecutive recup_dir folders. This makes it very difficult to find the right file.

Aijo wrote: 04 Sep 2024, 11:10 Hello everyone,
I need your help to restore some specific files. I wasn't sure whether to post in the Partition Recovery or File undelete forum. If I am wrong here, please move the thread to the correct forum.

Now to my problem.
I had a dual boot with Windows 10 and Linux (Nobara) running on an SSD. I actually only needed the Windows for playing games and for the Smart Home configuration (ETS5). Since I didn't do anything in Windows for a long time after configuring the Smart Home and was increasingly using Linux, I thought I would use the memory from Windows for the Linux system and deleted the partitions and added them to the existing BTRFS partition.

I am not using BTRFS. "added them to the existing BTRFS partition" is not a precise description. My very basic BTRFS knowledge allows for different interpretations of what you did.

I forgot that the project files are not backed up. I now want to restore them, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

The TestDisk package does not support secret project files. Please find another commercial recovery software that supports secret project files. You said that you do not know what you did wrong. Honestly, I do not know either because I don't know what you did.

Since there is still a relatively large amount of free space, it is possible that it has not yet been overwritten. Of course, you can't be sure.

I have already tried several settings under testdisk, but apparently

No, you obviously did not use TestDisk. You used PhotoRec which is contained in the TestDisk package. Be precise!
By the way, imagine an employee of yours being lost in mountains and the rescue people tell you: We searched several regions. What would your question be?!
"tried several settings" is not a case documentation and cannot be used to help you!!!

there was never the right one, because it only restored dll and exe files with a cryptic name (f196701560 for example). The restored files were also not stored in the same folder structure as in Windows, but in consecutive recup_dir folders. This makes it very difficult to find the right file.

PhotoRec (not TestDisk as you said) is the last line of defense in recovery and it worked as designed.
If you want more, try other recovery software.