hard drive recovery

hi. first time post. due to a virus, recently had to do a system recovery. unfortunately, i did not know how to backup my files and lost my pictures and music. i know they are still on the hard drive because whenever i do a security scan it scans those files. need to know how i can retrieve these files and then, after retrieving, how to back them up. my one friend told me to purchase a flash drive, which i did, but do not know what to do. any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

You might want to try Recuva, I've had luck with that.
http://www.recuva.com/

To prevent overwriting, I also recommend that you put the recovered files onto the flash drive.

 

if you do a security scan, then they weren't overwritten....look for a folder in c:/documents and settings with your old username and your files should be in there...unless you had them in a different folder. what was the location of the folder?

 

Also: just search for the files like these examples:

.jpg
.gif
.txt
.doc

Only "the ending" of the file names, - not the names themselves. You need to search in hidden files, folders, programs also and if you're on an XP it's important that you use Search Companion - the one with the yellow dog.