Cant recover deleted file?

Ok.. I deleted a file when i was on Windows Xp.. Now i installed Windows 7 and i removed windows Xp.. Now i want that file which i deleted back, Ive used many softwares none of them come up with the deleted file.. They just dont show those files, Its like those files never existed..

I dont understand why i cant find those deleted files.. I've tried like 10 different recovery programs.. none of them can find those files.. Also when i was on Windows Xp i used to recover files all the time without any problem..

Why is it that the recovery programs cant find my file? is it because i installed a new windows and maybe for some reason it cant read the files which were deleted on Windows Xp?

Chances are that file was overwritten when you installed Windows 7. You've been here a long time. I'm surprised you didn't know that.

If the file is crucial, send the drive to a specialist. They may be able to recover the file using those magical magnetic memory hardware tools a lot of people claim can be used to determine the entire history of a drive.

That would cost about $300 & I doubt it can be done after a clean install.

An interesting thread.

Yeah no, I didnt install windows on the same drive though, My data was in D Drive while i installed Win7 on C drive.

Cant really understand why the files dont show up.. Even if the files were overwritten, They still used to show up and it used to say that their condition is not good and you cant recover them but for some reason i cant even see those files now :S.

Do Windows XP and Windows 7 use the same disk format ? (NTFS I believe for XP?)

Alamode: If D was just a logical drive, setup may have wiped it.

Joebert: I believe it's still NTFS.

Try a software called Recuva



It can try to retrieve deleted data