HDD fdisk'd, formatted, now need to recover data

[Baron_Osiris]

I have a hard drive I need to recover data from. The story goes like this:

Visit customers house and determine that windows installation is corrupt due to a bad file structure. HP computer 20 gig hard drive windows 98. I tell the customer windows will have to be reinstalled and this will erase all data. After some lengthy discussion about file loss the customer agrees that backing up "My documents" will cover everything they need.

I take the computer and backup the "My Documents" folder. Then I Run fdisk to delete the partions. Run fdsik to rebuild the partitions. Restart computer and format C: drive ("C:\format C:" from a dos prompt using a windows boot disk). I copy the win98 installation directory from cd to the hard drive. Then I installed windows 98. I install all drivers, windows updates, MS Works, Adobe, Nero and AOL 9.0

Bring the system back to customers house and the first thing the customer noticed is that all the Works files are missing.

I am now trying to recover the missing works files.

This is my first time attempting to recover lost data and I have done some searching here in the forums and have tried two programs without much success. I have tried file scavenger without any success. I am trying "pc inspector file recovery" and am still working on it, but it doesn't seem to be finding what I need.

Can anyone provide me with advice on how to recover these files? Has anyone been able to recover files from a computer that has gone through fdisk (partion deletion and creation) and then a format ("C:\format C:" from a dos prompt using a windows boot disk)? Any technical advice would be most helpful.

[shamus]

Give this a try (it's free):

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

The alternative would be to take it to a data recovery type business.(far from free....)
Good luck.

[Ferrit]

Little after the fact but,
The one bit of technical advice I would give you is.
If your gonna fix computers,never ever believe the customer that all he need is these certain files. I dont know how many times I have gotten told.
I dont have anything there I need or its only the my documents and then had them blow a hairy cause they lost the email address book, or the favorites or somesuch.
Hook the drive to another system at home and find the files yourself.
address book
favorites
my docs
search *.doc search *.pub etc etc etc
as windows 98 throws the office saved files everywhere

[MobilePCPhysician]

I do this for a living. I have a server that we copy every hard drive that may have an issue like yours. I hold the copied stuff for 30 days. After that it's vapor. Saved me more than a few times. Can't offer you any advice as to your current problem though.