Factory Restore issue

I couldn't get the laptop, R40-2723-3XU, to boot up for days. I created the proble by downloading an updated driver from Intel for my pro/wireless 2100 3B wireless adapter.
A few days later the screen/system froze and would no longer boot up-black screen-no hard drive activity.

I finally managed to get into the Bios/set-up through the Access IBM button.
My only restore option was "factory default". The system now works fine but the hard drive shows 24GB of free space.

Is there any way to recover any of the files or documents that were on the hard drive or are they gone forever?

Thanks

 

There's free and paid software for recovering deleted files, though I've no idea if the same applies since in this case it was a system restore. There are also companies that can do this as well, but they tend to be expensive.

 

No problem with purchasing "paid" software.

Should it work? I've read on various past forums that until that section of the hard drive is written over the information should be recoverable. I'm hoping that's true with a factory restore.

Do you have any recommendation on which program might be likely to work?

Thanks,
Mike

 

Yeah, I've heard that too, but I don't have any firsthand knowledge. I did use some freeware I found on google to recover some pictures for someone at work. I can't remember the name. As I recall it weren't very user friendly, but did the job.