Greetings. I've never used file recovery before, and am checking things out. Will Recuva find and recover all the files (thousands!!) that were lost when Windows 10 surprised me with a forced update while I was away from home? And can I use Recuva on more than one computer? (I have two older ones, unused for a long while, one with a fried hard drive, I'm afraid.) And, of course, I haven't backed up any of my files. Thanks for your response.
You would need to restore from a user made disk image backup made with a disk image software such as Macrium Reflect or others - that is if you had already made one prior to the Windows update.
yes, the free version of Recuva can be used on all your PC's.
do you know what sort of upgrade Windows 10 did?
if it initiated one itself, it should have kept all your programs and personal data so reverting back should be as simple as going to Settings, Update & Security, Recovery.
there is a 30 day window that this is available for.
if the update wiped everything and installed a fresh OS then I'm confident a lot, if not all, of your files will be lost or overwritten to the point of being useless.