lost photos on system recovery

[thundercrack]

Hi,
my acer laptop ran out of battery, then when it was plugged into the mains it started with a system recovery, it was just like windows was being installed for the first time. now all the photos have gone missing. ( as did some files etc) but all the security programmes were still there, and the screen saver.
I have tried a system restore, but it will not let me go back any further than that day, and it shows system restore as the only thing happening on that day. the hard drive is half full, about 20gb, so I assume the files and photos are there, but hiding somewhere. any ideas????
Thanks a lot,

regards,
Alfie.

[Buenchico]

Have you tried running a search for *.jpg, which should find all files in the jpeg format?

Chris

[VHG]

System Restore wil not recover personal files.

It will only recover important Windows files.

But I am sure you had all your photos backed up to an external hard drive (or to CD or DVD). And if you didnt now you know why we say BACKUP your important files.

[Elmek]

try recuva from piriform. has helped me a couple of times
http://www.piriform.com/recuva
nothing ventured nothing gained as they say