Any way to recover files from hard disk?

[flowergardener]

I used the recovery CD from Northgate to reinstall Windows XP Home. It ignored the second partition of the hard drive where I had saved a backup file and promptly did a quick format on the entire physical drive.

Is there any way to recover the backup file?

[UnderScore]

From yesterday. http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=90153#90153
The advice & presentation should help you.

[flowergardener]

I guess once a drive has been reformatted with Quick Format it has lost all information about the original partitions. gpart did not return any information.

[Harry Kuhman]

I guess once a drive has been reformatted with Quick Format it has lost all information about the original partitions. gpart did not return any information.
Yes, that is absolutely correct. The disk now has one big partition on it and that is certainly what gpart would find if it examined the disk.

You just might still be able to recover some files off of the new large partition with a forensic recovery package like Helix (http://www.e-fense.com/helix/). I can't say for sure you will get anything, it depends on several factors including how much you have allowed Windows to overwrite the disk and your own skill in using the tools, but formatting itself does not destroy the old data that was on the disk, jusy makes it inaccesable to the normal file system.