title: Git - ran 'git init' multiple times, realized I lost data after several attempts
body: <p>Yesterday I was messing around with starting version control in a project I was working on. I am essentially totally new to using git, and was trying to run the &quot;first steps&quot; that I thought I remembered from some blog post about &quot;Getting Started with Git&quot; but messed up the order several times and got mixed up, so I would delete the .git and start over.</p>
  <p>All of these .git folders went to my recycle bin, and I finally got through the first steps by reading the manual, got through the <code>init</code> process and thought I was finished with that.</p>
  <p>Hop on this morning and once I dive into the directories of my project I discover my entire project is delete from inside of them. So I try to go to the trash can, restore the .git folders , move them to unique directories and clone them, pull them, just trying to run every troubleshooting process I can find online for each repo. I have had no success thus far.</p>
  <p>Like I said Im fairly new to git and honestly don't know where to go. I feel like running all of these random commands is just making things worse and confusing me, right now I have 4 versions of <code>&lt;project_dir&gt;_redo</code> folders, each with their own nearly identical version of a .git folder with varying numbers of &quot;commits&quot;, different content in the <code>/objects</code> and <code>/refs</code> folders etc. and I don't even know where to begin to see if I am making progress, messing things up more or what.</p>
  <p>Am i totally screwed or is there still hope?</p>
  <p>I can edit the post to include more info, I just don't know if posting 11 pictures of the directories is particularly helpful.</p>
  <p>EDIT
  I have tried to run <code>git log</code> in the folder with each of the .git files and every one results in
  <code>fatal: your current branch 'main' does not have any commits yet</code></p>
  <p>The best lead I have on the correct git directory is this one that has this structure:</p>
  <pre><code>.git
  ├── branches
  ├── COMMIT_EDITMSG
  ├── config
  ├── description
  ├── hooks
  │   ├── applypatch-msg.sample
  │   ├── commit-msg.sample
  │   ├── fsmonitor-watchman.sample
  │   ├── post-update.sample
  │   ├── pre-applypatch.sample
  │   ├── pre-commit.sample
  │   ├── pre-merge-commit.sample
  │   ├── prepare-commit-msg.sample
  │   ├── pre-push.sample
  │   ├── pre-rebase.sample
  │   ├── pre-receive.sample
  │   ├── push-to-checkout.sample
  │   └── update.sample
  ├── index
  ├── info
  │   └── exclude
  ├── logs
  │   └── refs
  │       ├── heads
  │       │   ├── index_form
  │       │   └── master
  │       └── remotes
  │           └── facili
  │               └── master
  ├── objects
  │   ├── 05
  │   │   └── 632ca44c03b4aa90a5768075c40231af2bc329
  │  ### About  100 files with hashes etc. ###
  │   ├── info
  │   └── pack
  └── refs
      ├── heads
      │   ├── index_form # the first &quot;branch&quot; I made
      │   └── master
      ├── remotes
      │   └── facili
      │       └── master
      └── tags
  </code></pre>