One of the most effective file recovery solutions that The Hobo has found over the years is GetDataBack from Runtime Software.
Multiple versions are readily available on most popular file sharing networks, and all have proven to be quite effective at recovering files from crashed and deleted hard drives.
From their website:
GetDataBack will recover your data if the hard drive’s partition table, boot record, FAT/MFT or root directory are lost or damaged, data was lost due to a virus attack, the drive was formatted, fdisk has been run, a power failure has caused a system crash, files were lost due to a software failure, files were accidentally deleted…
If you’ve experienced a meltdown, this is one handy program to have around. Free demos available from the publisher that will show you exactly what files the software will recover. Very useful in deciding to make a purchase or not.
The Digital Hobo fully recommends buying a copy for the next time your computer crashes. Just keep the program on your USB drive. It wont do you much good if it only lives on the drive that crashed.
Get Data Back with GetDataBack