I am not computer savy but now I'm looking into a backup. So sorry. Hope they can recover.

I have backups of my backups. I’m terrified of losing stuff again.

I started collecting jump drives. One for pics (well I’m on my second now—grandkids triple the amount of pics you take ), one for movies, one for books, one for games, one for writings, journals, and other paperwork, etc.

I see people buying these terabyte and multiterabyte drives. All I think of is how if it goes, you lose everything.

I can get 64 thing jump drives for ten bucks now.

It could be a positive, as you said, with a clean slate.

If you ae very lucky it is only the case and its electronics, also sometimes they come good briefly, dn't you do it but your tech may stick it in the freezer, for enough money it can be recovered, but most of us don't have that much money.

That is a tough one. If you have friends that work in the government they have ways to recover it. Just convince someone that there is details about a crime on it you might get some help recovering it. There is a company that will recover it I have not had a need to use it and do not know the name. I had ran across it looking for ways to recover lost data on a broken thumb drive.

I do believe its possible to find what you lost

Been there, done that. (Spilled my New Castle on the keyboard.) But luckily my computer guru friend was able to retrieve most of my data. Good luck.