Yeah, formatting makes things more difficult. If he had simply DELETED most of his files directly from, say, Windows, he'd had a much better chance at restoring just about everything. The files really remain until they become overwritten by new data, and "deleting" them does not delete them. Heh.

"Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica and is widely regarded as the most important innovator in scientific and technical computing today." - Stephen Wolfram