Sorry I haven't replied in a few days, from the title of the thread I'm sure you can tell I've been busy.
As for HOW it happened:
I downloaded Seagates DiskWizard for Windows. I went to re-install the drive since it wasn't reading properly. I was given three choices on what to "make" the drive -
1. Storage
2. Bootable Disk (keep data)
3. Bootable Disk (delete data)
Obviously option three was a no go. I didn't need an external hard drive to boot from so I naturally skipped over two. I picked one and there was not a single warning.
After I found out my drive had been formatted I actually went back into the DiskWizard three or four more times to make sure there wasn't a warning that said that was going to happen.
How do you make a program to install hard drives and NOT put a big fat waring that says you may lose your crap?
As for data recovery, I don't intend on trying it. I figure there's a reason it happened and I'd been getting frustrated with work and wished I could just start from scratch with certain things.
Now I have no other option then to start from the bottom. Starting clean will allow me to reorganize things the way that I want.
Thank you for all your help though, especially you Omga_Zro