NTFS Data Recovery Help

[Miburou]

Hi there. I have a serious problem regarding data recovery on an NTFS volume running on Windows XP Professional (Yes, I know... Please spare me the ridicule...) and I was told by a friend that Knoppix is capable of recovering my files. The nature of the problem is thus: I have an 80gig Western Digital hard drive enclosed in a 3.5" I/O Magic USB enclosure which I use solely for multimedia and large files. A few days ago, I received an error message that read something along the lines of, "Delayed write error... the MFT has been corrupted". Since then, it only recognized the file system as RAW, rather than NTFS, rendering the volume itself inoperable. I had no choice but to do a quick format to write the basic NTFS system files back onto the volume, so I could access/read it. Everything went smoothly and I decided to call it a night, for I had to wake up early the next morning, but unbeknownst to me, one of my family members used my drive while I was sleeping and wrote a lot of data to it, making it nearly impossible to recover any of the files using Windows 32 programs. =/ To make a long story short, I need a reliable program or information on how to have Knoppix recover data beyond the entry level. I know that the government can recover data from beyond 3 levels down. Surely, Knoppix must be capable of recovering data from 2 levels down, right? Could someone please help me out? I'd be eternally indebted. Thanks in advance!

[pureone]

http://purelinux.hollosite.com/savedataknoppix.txt

im sure some other people can give some handy tips aswell but this is a basic overview.

[Miburou]

How many levels is Knoppix capable of recovering, my friend?

[pureone]

to tell you the truth i have no idea. but i would have to say 2 layers. knoppix is a good tool for data recovery but its not to the level that the goverment forensic experts have. but aslong as the datas there knoppix will beable to get to it.