Protect data before further writes make the situation worse
After data loss, avoid uncontrolled continued use, formatting or repeated experiments with random repair tools. Depending on the cause, further writes can reduce the chance of recovery. The first step is therefore to determine what happened and whether the storage medium is still stable and accessible.
Prevention is just as important as recovery: local backups, external drives, NAS systems, cloud storage and sensible multiple-copy strategies can be configured so important data is not stored in only one place.
