To have any chance of maybe recovering something.
STOP USING THE RESTORED COMPUTER NOW!!!!!!
Each and every drive access can overwrite any potentialy recoverable file.
After a system restore, your main drive got whipped clean and an image of the original, out of the factory, installation crushed any files that may have been there. In this case, the files are realy lost.
Some files physicaly located after the area used by the image should be intact for some time, but not accessible as there are no folder entry pointing to them, AND the used area is marked as empty and any write operation can destroy those.
Installing a programm to recover those may actualy destroy several files that you want to recover. For this reason, you must transfert that drive in another computer that already have the needed programm installed to analyse your drive.
Those basic file recovery are relatively cheap, and some may actualy be free. Do a search using ANOTHER computer.
You must assume that any recovered file will be nameless and you'll need to give them significant names with the correct extentions. In some cases, the file may contains some metadata that can help you give it it's original name. An hex editor can be very hancy for that.
Some very costly forensic recovery programm may recover some overwrited files. You probably don't have the knowlege needed to use those and will need to pay a technician to do the work. It can take a LOT of time! The recovered files may not be totaly intact and several are realy lost for ever. It may cost around $1000 or more with NO guaranty.
That's why you MUST ALWAYS do a backup of your files BEFORE you do any system restore.
Electro
June 2012
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