I had to wipe out my entire computer into it's factory image.

How do I recover the files I had before the reformat, if it's possible?

I know there are some programs out there, but I don't know which one.

You're hosed.

A simple deleted file is hard enough to recover, but if you've reimaged, all the filesystem data will be gone, and lots and lots of writing will have been done. With forensic tools and a huge budget, you'd have some small chance of getting bits and pieces, but beyond that, you're SOL. Merry Christmas.

In happier news, I deleted a file accidentally on Linux today, immediately realized my mistake, Googled [ext2fs undelete], and found some 10-year-old alpha software that recovered it perfectly. Yay Linux! I didn't at all expect it to work.

Ah well. Are we sure it can't be done in Windows Vista?

Pretty sure.

Hardware manufacturers don't consider that people might ''actually'' have ''personal files'' stored on their ''personal computers''.

Or that they might decide to upgrade their computers later.

(Hrmm, says he, who is lumped with a useless Toshiba TE2100 restore disc, which assumes a 40GB HDD, when his laptop now has a 160GB HDD. Bring back proper installation media I say!)

> Hardware manufacturers don't consider that people might ''actually'' have ''personal files'' stored on their ''personal computers''.
>
> Or that they might decide to upgrade their computers later.

Side-comment: Apple for one does not have this problem. Its upgrade and migration tools actually appear to work correctly, moving from one Mac Mini to another was almost completely painless except for some third-party software which was keyed to the hardware (a stupid feature.)