@WhyIHateTheInternet@lemmy.world

When it comes to old drives, you may very well only get one good read out of it before its gone for good. (Or at least solidly in a very pricey data recovery service territory)

If you have the means to do so, consider a data recovery service first and foremost if you can't afford it or don't want to proceed on

So the first thing you want to do is make a byte-by-byte raw image of the drive(s) with a tool like this https://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/

BUT you will need a destination drive that's at least the same size as your source. So if your old drive is 500GB you'll need a destination that has 500GB free or more. Id personally go a tad bigger because ya never know and remember this might be the last time you get a good read

Second it sounds like you did plug it into android and it tried adding in it's default folders, but 1) it probably picked up the 500MB or so tiny boot partition windows makes 2) it only adds folders, it doesn't wipe partitions.

So in both your data is probably fine BUT

It does sound like your drive isnt particularly healthy, so until you're ready to make that image keep it offline and disconnected

Once you have the image, you do all your work from there and keep your source drive safe until you're 100% you don't need it anymore