Okay, I did something really, really dumb. I've been up all night because of it.

My computer was running really slow. Spyware, etc. So I decided to restore my computer back to it's original state. I saved everything that was important to a disk, but I saved some of them just as shortcuts(Not the actual file). At the time I didn't think there was a difference.

As some of you may know, I do stand-up comedy. I was also starting a book on adult male rape. Plus, I had material for a>

Fusion,

There are undelete utility programs you can buy at CompUSA, BestBuy, Office Depot, probably even Walmart. (I'm guessing you have an IBM compatible PC running some version of DOS/Windows.)

Also, check for a local PC user group. The most important thing right now is stop using the computer until you do the recovery. The spaces on the drive(s) where your stuff still remains look like "empty" spaces to the computer right now. And empty spaces are where it will write new things, like a copy of the pictures on this page, the text you are writing in your posts, and a wide assortment of its own "stuff." Everytime something else is written to the wrong part of "empty" space, you really do lose a bit of what is only "hidden" right now.

Good luck with it. Find a geek friend locally if you're really nervous about the undeleting.

Thanks,

Joe

I have restored files after a hard drive was reformatted twice and a completely new installation of windows was put over it. I have even been able to do this using free software available at http://www.download.com

Did you format and restore or just run a restore program. In some cases, if you just run a restore program, it will not actually overwrite any data that was not part of the orginal package but you will lose refrences to that data in your registry. You may be able to locate it by manually searching you directories. If you formated you HD, the data may or may not be available to be recovered. It depends on whether or not the sectors the data was in originally were written back over when you reloaded the backup.

Hey,

I was looking around the link Mike left up there ^ and found this. I didn't take a really close look at it but it may help.

data recovery program

My own prison is right about the pointers.

As for the rest of it, most of what has been said is wrong. It all depends on how determined you are to recover the information. Drives can be written over multiple times and the information is still recoverable. Data can even be recovered from drives which have been partially destroyed in fires. There are reasons why the Govt. formats drives that contain sensitive information over 25 times before destroying them before throwing them out.