Please see this issue I created w/GOG Galaxy:
mantis.gog.com/view.php?id=4214
Is anyone aware of a way to undelete / recover files deleted by GOG Galaxy?

Thanks,
diznanl

Assuming it was done recently (aka nothing overwrote the disk sectors), use a recover utility like Piriform's Recuva to recover your files.
That is a known issue if and only if you tell the uninstaller (either Galaxy or the normal one) to delete your saves and files as well, since it deletes the whole folder the game is installed in. Since you installed the game in F:\Games, it deleted everything in there.
If you opt to keep your saves and files, it will only delete the game's files, not everything in the folder.

Thanks, JMich, for your response.

I didn't check any option to delete saves... no option was available.

I did a search before your reply and actually began running Recuva about 40 minutes ago and it's found ~ 700K files. I've got about 3 hours before the scan is finished. Thanks for the heads-up.

This is a pretty huge oversight, in my opinion. Games usually create their own folders when you choose a folder to install them in. GOG Galaxy doesn't do that; it installs it in the root folder you choose to install to. As I mention in the issue ticket, the program acted like malware in my instance, it deleted everything without prompt or prejudice.

Again, no option to opt to remove save games. I had an old version, so I hope this has been added in versions since 1.1.5.

Please change the behavior of GOG Galaxy so that:
1. It creates a folder for the game to be installed to and displays this in the UI ... e.g. if I choose F:\Games it will display F:\Games\Witcher3 as the destination folder.
2. A warning prompt is displayed before deleted data without prejudice.

Thank you,
diznanl

That's why I prefer game installers and not the client.
Sadly ony way to recover your games is redownload them.

From what I recall, both those things have been done, since I do recall people mentioning this problem before. Hope you manage to recover your files, as I think you will. Same thing can happen with installer (or more specifically, uninstaller) even without the use of the client. If you set an incorrect install folder and tell it to delete everything, it will delete everything. Any good recovery program should be able to recover the files. The only question is whether it's faster to recover or redownload, but if there are other files than the game ones there (e.g. saves), recovering will be better.

Depending on your version of Windows and your settings for backups and system restore points (I think) there is an option in the properties of folders to restore previous versions which I've found quite useful in similar circumstances.


When you do something like this and then download a recovery program to fix it, what are the chances of the recovery program overwriting the data you got it to recover? Or is the advice to download it straight to a usb key or something?

In theory you shouldn't even boot from the disk containing the "deleted" files.

From what I recall, it depends on the free space (and fragmentation) you had before the deletion of the files. Considering most of the recovery programs are small though, I'd say the chances are slim, but not non-existent.

Emotionally, no.

Its never done that to me, are you sure your hard drive is working correctly?

If the OP lost their games on F: though, it stands to reason that there is a primary C: drive, to which the recovery program could be downloaded. It wouldn't touch the sectors with the deleted games.

Under very very specific conditions.
1) The game must not be installed in a subdirectory
2) When deleting, you don't tell it to keep your saves and files.

Since 2 means it (whether Galaxy or uninstaller) deletes the game's directory, and 1 means that the game's directory also has other stuff in it, it is possible (though currently unlikely) that uninstalling a game will delete other files as well. But the default behavior for installation directories should prevent 1 from happening.
See reply to anothername. It is possible, but not likely.
Generic answer to adalia, not specific to this case.

Thanks for clearing that up! :)

Galaxy ate my hamster.