Definitely this. The data is not likely gone, but before doing anything that could make things worse, try and get a full copy of the SD card somewhere. From there you may safely try repairing the partition or data carving tools.

I'd imagine a berry of some sort. There could be a berry we still eat that pre-humans also ate. Wouldn't surprise me.

Ah crap, yeah, I forgot about that, you're right.

Keep in mind both options require enabling remote control from Windows settings. It's off by default if I recall right.

If you have another windows pc, you can use the built-in remote desktop. Or, from Linux you can install a Microsoft rdp compatible client like remmina. (Edit: If using Windows Pro on the target machine, for either of these options)

I don't personally know of any but in a similar vein there are some stone monuments intended to convey information after an apocalypse like the Georgia Guidestones or the nuclear waste site warning stones. GitHub put a snapshot of all active code repositories from 2020 in arctic permafrost, and there is the arctic seed vault for preserving plant species.

They are necessitating 8GB of RAM. for what?! Like, it would be a struggle to find a machine with less than 8GB still being sold new, sure, but why does the OS need that RAM?