Recover data from hard drive with partitions (but not most data) overwritten

I have a 500GB hard drive I've been keeping around to recover data from that I removed from a failing NAS drive that got sort of... erratic at the end. I finally got rid of the NAS when during a firmware update it removed the partition table.

Fast forward to a week ago, when I was building a new PC, and a mixup resulted in me placing the hard drive in question in the new PC and installing Windows XP on the first 100GB. I'm presuming any data on that first 100GB is now gone, but for the rest of it, is there any way I can recover it at home, as professional data recovery is currently too expensive?

I have a blank 1TB HDD if I can store any images of that hard drive on. The problem was definitely with the NAS and not the hard drive, as the hard drive had a successful install of Windows when mistakenly place in the new PC, and there were capacitors in the NAS's circuitry clearly broken.

The data I want to recover (in order of priority) is:

• High: Some jpgs of family photos.
• Medium: Some RAW files. (There are also jpg versions of all of these)
• Low: Some mp3s, avis and ISOs, I can re-rip most of these if need be, but it'd be handy not to have to.

(I don't need a backup lecture, and if you can hold it in from nagging Jeff Atwood for it, you can hold it in from nagging me for it)

In short:

• The partition tables are gone and overwritten.
• The data is not overwritten, except for an amount equal to the size of a Windows XP SP3 installation.

You can use PhotoRec in this situation. It's a free application that scans your harddrive for file headers and tries to recover as many files possible. I've had luck restoring documents and photos from harddrives where the partition table got messed up and other file recovery apps failed.

A default Windows install shouldn't be more than about 10GB (even on Vista), so there's reasonable odds that some of your data is still there. The best software I've used for this kind of thing is Runtime's GetDataBack for NTFS. It has an option to recover files from sustained filesystem damage, such as reinstalling an OS on top.

Put the drive into another machine, and run a scan with that, and see how much stuff it shows up. I think there are trials for GetDataBack, but the full version is only $80, which isn't an extortionate price for your data.

i recommend WinHex, certainly one of the best program available in the realm of computer forensics (if not THE best). if it's just 'file recovery' you need, the 'lite' version, called Davory, will suffice, it is using the same technology. both programs are able to recover data from formatted drives, even if partially overwritten. the personal license for Davory costs €33 or $48.

just make sure to select the physical disc and not any of the newly created partitions from the drive selection menu.

Winhex saved my bacon countless times!