File Recovery help

First let me say any help is greatly appreciated and thanks in advance.

It has been a frustrating 2 days, more like month, here is the back story. I have an HP Laptop and desktop that I built myself. I used to mainly use the desktop until about 6 months ago when it got hit by a virus, I moved everything over to the laptop and have been using it for the 6 months until 2 weeks ago it got hit by a virus. I restored the desktop with a complete reformat 6 months ago and haven't used it since and two weeks ago I did a complete reformat on the laptop it barely has anything except the operating system on it. I have always used a usb external hard drive to backup files from both computers and store files on for traveling and so forth. I have used it for about 4 years now with both computers to just back up files on by simply just moving the files to the external hard drive (the drag and drop method). Yesterday morning I woke up turned on the external hard drive and it was clicking, windows couldn't see it and so I in a panic and take it to a computer repair shop here locally, fearing the worst. They call me back today and tell me it is a level 3 problem and that they are going to have to send it out to a 3rd party data recovery company to get the files back and it is going to be at the least around $700.00, well like most I don't have that kind of money.

So, I started thinking since I just reformatted the laptop and there is really nothing on it except some programs and operating system and I had reformatted my desktop and never have used it the files that I need might be on those hard drives and might be able to be recovered. So started reading and came to the conclusion that I might be right.

So that brings me to the good folks here at Majorgeek with a few questions.

1. In theory am I correct in what I am thinking ???

2. What is the best free or inexpensive file recovery program ??? (I do have some old Norton system works cd, Norton Partion Magic 8.0 and Symantec Recovery Disk.) Found some free ones on line but there are so many I am confused at which on works the best ???

I am running Windows XP Home Sp3 on both computers, just as a reference point, I am off to buy the 250 gig hard drive that Walmart is advertising for $60.00 to possibly move some restored files onto if I can figure this all out. If I can then I am hoping to save the $700 data recovery fee that the computer repair place wants to charge.

 

1. Yes, you are correct in theory.
The only hitch in your plan is that you have installed the OS on the computer. If the OS data was written over the data you want to recover, than you may be out of luck. Formatting, on it's own, does not destroy the data.

2. The first program I would look at is undelete http://majorgeeks.com/Active_UNDELETE_d4268.html
It is shareware. When I was working at a computer shop, that is what we used to try to recover data. Our head tech was really good at getting us effective software, so that is the program I trust. We had a licensed version, so I don't know what the free version of it will do for you.

Important information: Do not boot Windows on the hard drive you are trying to recover the data off of. Do not install software on the hard drive you are trying to recover data off of. This only serves to write more data to the hard drive and risks writing over the data you want to recover. What you need to do is take the hard drive out of the formatted computer and hook it up to a different, working 'tech' computer. Install the data recovery tool on the tech computer and use it to recover the information.