Why did all the files and folders on the flash drive disappear?

Question

USB flash drives

Hello!
The problem is next!
There was a flash drive with folders and files. The file system was ntfs; I connected a flash drive to ubuntu to copy the iso image of windows there. It didn't work out. Then I tried with sudo cp
and everything was gone. Remaining Windows files.
How to return to the previous state?? All files and folders must be returned.
Who faced such problems?
Thank you!

Answer 1

How exactly did they copy it? USB flash drive unmounted after disconnection?
You can try to restore it with free software: https://rlab.ru/tools/rsaver.html
It works fine, and if it doesn't find something, it's most likely that even experts in manual mode won't be able to restore it.

Answer 2

How to return to the previous state?? All files and folders must be returned.

Read about data recovery, but the chances are most likely small.
You most likely confirmed that the data on the flash drive will be overwritten when copying the image, inattention ...

Answer 3

You most likely confirmed that the data on the flash drive will be overwritten when copying the image, inattention ...

The thing is, I didn't ask for confirmation.