losing zotero library

iskanbasal

Hello, I'm not a paid member in Zotero. I had zotero library in my computer which contained more than 2500 scientific references of great value for me. Recently I have had a problem with my computer and the Dell technicians had to reinstall windows 10. I lost every thing I have stored in the computer including my Zotero library. When I downloaded Zotero in the new reinstalled windows, the library showed the references lacking the pdf attachments. Is there anyway to retrieve the lost material? Can anybody give me some advice in this regard? How to do?

adamsmith

If you have a back-up of your hard disk from prior to the system restore, find the Zotero data folder from that back up. Within that, find the "storage" folder and copy it to your current Zotero data folder and you should have access to all your PDFs again.
https://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data

If you don't have a back-up, I'm afraid Zotero never stored your PDFs online (that's part of the paid service), they were only local so there's no way you can restore them.