When it comes to the video-editor there's not much can be done about lost work.
In times past my project file might have older versions, and I could open those older versions and pull the missing work into the newer project.

With the OS issue and drivers I don't know if upgrading Ubuntu will solve that, but I have a bunch of custom configurations that will be become broken if I upgrade or do a new OS install.
I'm not worried about losing data because I do have most of my data backed up to a few drives, but it's more-so software configuration that will be broken if I upgrade/new install.

Just an example. I have my VMware Workstation install cracked so that it can run MacOS VM's, and I don't know if I can repeat that on another distro or a newer one. There's lots of little things that get lost, and you don't even necessarily think of them until you go to use them.

But I have to do something because I need Nvidia drivers to work.
I'm gonna swap in that new GPU and see if it'll work in this system.