I am trying to recover files from a FAT32 WinXP partition that was overwritten with a fresh XP install after if would not boot. To skip details of why it won't boot skip to the next paragraph. I was asked to put a PATA hard drive into a newer machine for a receptionist who was using a very old machine. I complied and when I tried booting this machine it said that it was "Detecting IDE drives" or something (I was moving the old machine away and not watching closely). After a few minutes Windows 98 appears and boots. I could not get back into Windows XP after trying many things in the Recovery Console. I read about trying a "Repair Installation" which my OEM WinXP disk seemed to lack. I make a stupid mistake and guessed at which partition was Windows 98 and re-installed XP over the top, thinking the other partition would still hold all the data I needed. I was wrong.
After realizing that some very important work documents that were scanned in and destroyed had not been backed up anywhere between this time, I frantically tried to find a way to restore. I downloaded the free trial of EASUS Data Recovery Pro and it found many files but none were from the user account or time period I was needing. After hours of trying different restore software and different configurations I am at a loss. What do I need to do? Is this even possible to recover from?
