New tools for recovering data files off re-formatted NTFS partition in XP?

[DDoerschuk]

A friend has an XP desktop with a single NTFS partition at his home that wouldn't boot. He tried what he knew, but sadly ended up reinstalling XP. He'd like to recover his data, and so gave me a call.

I told him to A) stop using the computer, B) buy a new disk, C) install XP on it, then D) re-connect the his existing drive as D:. At that point we'l l recover what files we can from D:, writing them onto C: so as to not overwrite "free" space on D: and permanently lose more file data.

It has been 3 or 4 years since I've had to do this, and I would like to ask for recommendations on software to recover files from the formatted partition. Last time it was at work, and I used R-Studio from RT Tools. It was fairly succesful, but I was wondering if there was something better now. Free is good, of course, but I'm certainly willing to pay for software.

Thank you very much!
Dave

[Adamsappleone]

Try this, it's works pretty good;

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

[DDoerschuk]

After a few unrelated hardware problems, we were able to use Recuva to get almost all his old data, including some photographs that he'd not backed up.

Recuva was very easy to use, and seemed to do a thorough job.

Thank you very much for recommending it!

Dave