Shrodinger’s cat wasn’t some simplified lesson for the layman. It wasn’t even an explanation. It was a commentary about the quantum model itself and how the current state of the model is laughably incomplete and unable to adequately answer or predict anything of value (yet). It wasn’t until more recently that some Newtonian physics might be explainable as emergent properties of quantum mechanics, but we are still a long ways away from a unified or blurred model.
https://betterexplained.com/articles/gotcha-shrodingers-cat/
Right, well testdisk has worked wonders in the past for me. It might worth a try especially if this is a spinning rust drive. It has helped me recover broken partitions and lost files so if you know where you’re looking you just might have a chance. I’m no expert but it seems like one of your last options with all the info provided. Best of luck!