The data is probably still there, just not known to the filesystem. You need to look at the raw data on the drive for a recovery. I don’t remember the names of all of the tools to do that, sorry…
yeah, but @DrBill, you have to do that from another machine that can interface the drive… “windows can’t lock the drive” says the cmd prompt at an attempt to recover a file from the hot machine.
Data recovery software will work so long as the file hasn’t been overwritten. There are a few free ones out there you can try but it has to be installed on a different drive than you are recovering from in most cases. PC Inspector File recovery seems decent. The longer you wait to retrieve the less likely you are to succeed.
Recommend “Recuva” to you guys if you accidently empty your recycle bin that contains some important files. It is totally free and ever did me a big favor.