mass migration, huge mess

it depends....

There is a free version of PDM you can start with and migrate to enterprise if you need it.

But you probably don't need PDM.  We are managing somewhere around 100,000 files without PDM.  We will probably implement PDM Standard soon, not necessarily for file management, but rather for revision control, but we are doing OK without as of now.

Many companies make the mistake of trying to be too organized, by putting things in folders based on projects, etc.  This often causes more issues than necessary.

We have a simple file system.  Our main file is our Production file.  That's everything we make.  Then we have a Purchased file with sub folders for various types of purchased items.  This is mainly for finding things fast.  Finally we have a Project folder where the immature projects are worked on before they are moved into Production.

Some places have everything in one folder.  There's not necessarily anything wrong with that either.  You can search with SW Explorer for what you are looking for, hopefully if people were filling out the custom properties.

In your situation, with all the links broken, personally I might start with everything in one folder.  Then the assemblies should be able to find their references quickly.  At that point, you can start organizing into sub folders if you want.

With PDM, I have been told it may be best to have everything pretty much in one folder for speed.  The PDM prefers it as I understand, YMMV.

Forgive me if you have already exhausted these ideas but let's troubleshoot the obvious first..  IF POSSIBLE, see if you can drag / drop the files back to their previous locations.  The links are still trying to look in the last known locations until you tell them to look elsewhere.  I know this may not be possible and I'm sure it's a mess.

Your I.T. may be able to restore the system to a previous date before things got yanked around.

The next step I would try - you can use SW Explorer to repair broken mates as well, without a PDM setup.  If you speak the language of macros you may be able to write one to help with the necessary repairs.  I am not fluent enough to help with that one.

Good luck to you!

Collect all the files into one folder.

Change the Referenced Documents list in Options to include this folder.

Open save and close the files to establish the new links.

I just tried something and it worked.  Maybe you could try on a few files.

I created a part, created the drawing.  Moved the files into separate folder on my desktop.  Opened the drawing....reference was broken.  So I copied the model and the drawing (from separate folders) into a folder in the vault.  I checked them in, reference was there.  This might be less painful than you think. 

Try copying a group of files from your current structure into a folder in the vault.  See if it works. 

Ensure that you don't have duplicate file names! That one will kill you and your assemblies. Put all your standard parts into EPDM first.