Scene Wiped?

Unity crashed some time ago whilst i was working on this scene, i thought nothing of it at the time, and decided since unity thought it best i take a break from that scene, i jump on to my starter scene, then to realise that the entire “Level01” has been cleared, this had thousands and thousands of un-regain-able custom models, buildings, characters, vehicles, and now when ever i go into this scene, all of the 1000+ hrs of work in this scene is missing, and refuses to come up with anything!

is this simply a case of… pffhht what a noob, should have backed up… or is there a way to recover?

Your custom models, buildings, characters etc. are not saved in a scene file - they are assets which are added to your Unity’s project directory, just like any other documents on your filesystem. And if you delete them, you restore them like any other file - from the Recycle bin, Time Machine, a backup file etc.

The only thing you should have lost from a scene file becoming corrupt is the layout of those particular assets in one scene - the level design of where prefabs are placed. That’s very unlikely to be 1000+ hours of work, and you should start using version control to prevent having to do it again next time.