Have I lost my files?

I had to restore my computer back to factory settings recently with help from a support help desk. I backed up everything, or so I thought. I had to load in software again and now today I am trying to find my family history files which I made using Family Tree and Family Tree 4. They aren't there! I just don't know where to look. Have I really lost them? It is hours of work and I didn't print out more than a fraction of them. Will I have the backup anywhere? I don't understand these things very well so hope someone can put me out of my misery please. (Not sure if this is in the right forum. Apologies if it isn't.)

When the computer was returned to the factory settings it overwrote the files from the previous installation, this usually will mean that any personal information that was stored on the same partition will be lost. There are forensic recovery techniques that can be applied, but they are very expensive. Once a file or parts of it are over written conventional methods can't retrieve the data.

That is tragic! I shall have to start again now. Please can you tell me how I can back the files up as a I go along. They aren't stored on my documents which is about the only bit that I understand how to back up.

I would suggest backing them up to removable media, like CDs, DVDs, flash drive, or a second hard drive. There are application like Acronis's true Image that you can use to backup the whole hdd as well.

with help from a support help desk. I backed up everything,

Backed them up to where??

Thanks for the replies. You must despair with people like me. Because I don't fully understand what I am doing I assumed all the family history stuff was going into 'my documents' part of my computer but it wasn't. The family tree programme is loaded and I access it via my desktop. When I saw something in it where does it go? How do I find it to back it up as I go along? Sorry if this is terribly basic to you but I just don't know. It's really kind of people to offer advice, I don't know anyone who could help me otherwise.

Hope to hear from you.