You can retrieve your lost files and locate your work in temporary files in the Windows. There will be no files in root directory and Windows dependant utilities if you format the windows partitions. The record is lost with the root directory and FAT with the zero put. The data can be retrieved until you perform full format. The intact data can be retrieved with the full format even if there is zero structure in the root directory and FAT. The subdirectories will be still on the drive as these are stored in the data area.

You can not use the Windows explorer and unerase tools in the directory and FAT. You need a program which can create directory of lost files with filename, locations and sizes. The directory and FAT on the formatted drive can be created with the unformat programs. It will search data through the drive to locate subdirectories stored on the data area. There will be complete entries in the directories of the files listed with their names, size and starting cluster locations. These information can be used by the unforamt program to rewrite the chain entries for the file in the FAT.

The unformat program can be very effective if your files are not fragmented and these files must be contiguous. The fragmented file can lose its information with the unformat program as this program will take all the clusters of the same file. It is very easy to recover files with the contiguous files as compared to fragmented files. Therefore it is good for you to run good defragmenter program. There is built defragmenter utility in the Windows but it is too slow. You can use Vopt utility for more powerful and faster defragmenter. The free trail version of the utility is easily available on internet.

The unforamt program should be able to understand the file system of the disk. You can use the utility according to your systems Windows 98/Me/XP/2000 have the support for Norton utilities 2002. you can see the working of the Norton unformat program by copying lots of data in one locations containing graphics files, text file in the same root directory. You drive will be rebuilt when your format the drive and then boot the system with Norton utility. You will see that there are two folders created in the root directory. There are Dir0 contained folders names such as Rp0.

The lost data is stored in the Dir 1. the entire folder structure is created in the new folder in which all files are retrieved. These files are retrieved with exact name and size.