Need some tech help

[anon361]

This is only partly true. When you format the disk you lose all the information about where the files are on disk, but they don't actually get overwritten yet. Reinstalling Windows will probably have overwritten some, but the others should still be there, though Windows won't be able to find them. There are programs which will scan a hard drive for blocks which look like the headers for known file types, which would include the music and pics urlslave is looking for. A good data recovery company will have these programs, and know how to use them, which is important because data recovery is more art than science.

That's only true if he selected quick format during the new windows installation but that is not the default, the default is to write over the entire disk with blank code, only during a quick format does it just remove the headers..