alt Hacker NewsPhotoRec saved my ass just earlier this week, after an accidental wipe of a CompactFlash card with client photos on it.
As another commenter noted, create an exact dupe/image of the volume as the very first thing you do.
Also: if it doesn't successfully retrieve files on the first go, try another configuration. I think it took me 3 attempts to get it right.
A fun perk, also noted in the article: you may get back some surprises along with the files you expect - older files revealed in the sediment!
> may get back some surprises along with the files you expect - older files revealed in the sediment
One time a customer brought their computer in. She had wiped and reloaded the system through the recovery partition and didn't understand the big red text stating that all of her data would be removed.
I let her know we might be able to recover some of the data. She agreed that only the photos were important, so I let PhotoRec do its thing.
A few hours later, a panicked husband called worried his wife would find porn in the recovery. We charged him extra to clean up what was basically junk from the Internet Explorer cache. Not an extortionate amount, but extra. I think we could have asked for anything at that moment.