Help with recovery of old files?

I recently got attacked hard by virus/malware/nastiness and now my XP software reinstalled and basically returned it back to its original state (i.e. like when I bought it). It even went through the rigamaroo of introducing me to the XP system. I basically lost all my files (music, writing, school work, 4 years of life), but different things that I installed were still present. The newest version of AIM launched like normal, my BlackBerry desktop software launched, and other numerous things (I found it funny that iTunes 4 was what was launched). I guess my question is: is there a way that I can recover my music and what not. I mean I do not need everything, but some of the stuff I just can't replace. I do not know what more info you need, but any help would be appreciated.

Jacob

A bit of a long shot but you could try Recuva (freeware). Not sure how much it'll find in the circumstances (factory re-set)
http://www.piriform.com/recuva

The fact that some of your software is still working means one of two things:

1. You performed a "factory reset" using the restoration disk from your system's manufacturer, or
2. You performed a "repair" install with a standard XP CD and these programs don't seem to mind.

iTunes version 4 was released in 2004, if you never updated it then I'd say that option 1 is likely. If, however, you had a later version installed before you reinstalled, then I'd say that option 2 is likely.

If option 2 is what's happened, then all your data is likely still there. Just run a search for the files using the built-in search function.

If option 1 is the case, however, your data may not be recoverable. Depending on how thorough, if any, a disk format was performed by the factory reset procedure, your files may be recoverable by using an undelete utility like Recuva.

This is all speculation, though. Any additional info you can provide would be useful.

that program worked like a charm! i was able to recover most of my files. the only things i could not recover were word documents. the program only searched for .doc and .docx. so some of those files are lost...for now