quote:
Originally posted by krissy-afc
It recovers deleted files. It's how the authorities catch paedophiles (like myself).
Sorry, but that isn't a helpful, or practical suggestion.
Most recovery software is expensive and unreliable. There are no good free bits of recovery software. The kinds that the police use are able to extract the odd file, enough for a conviction, but these are expensive pieces of software and probably not commercially available. Any free alternatives will either fail, or will make you pay to recover the files (which could be false promises).
Sorry to be blunt, but I have told you what your two options are, if you can't do either of those then you just have to accept that the files are lost..and set up a back-up solution on your computer to prevent it happening in the future.
As sad as it is data loss is the main precursor to people setting up a backup. I never used to backup until many, many years ago I got a virus and lost everything on my hard drive..since then I've been very careful with backups.
As far as Windows 7, run the Upgrade Advisor that I linked you to and post the results here and we might be able to suggest what you can do