Retriving data from a formatted hard disk?

[sunny]

Well,
my brother has a 40 G.B hard disk,which had mandrake linux.But by mistake, he deleted some of the files of home partition and was not able to even get the data of that partition copied on to the C.D.So, he just formatted it,i would like to know is it possible to get data from it!

[Twey]

Ouch. Formatting usually isn't recoverable. I did, however, find this, which, ironically, requires Windows. It says it can only handle ext2, but since ext3 is basically ext2 with a journal, I wouldn't have thought it'd have much trouble with that. If he's used a more exotic filesystem, I think he's in trouble.
If he is now using that partition, I suggest he dds a raw copy now, before it gets used any more, as every file written is likely to end up overwriting what little data might be left over from the old filesystem.

[.alias.]

Well ive seen software that is capably or recovering data of formated hard disks even if they have been formated 5 times you can still get some data back. But im afraid i can help you as to where you can get it. I belive it is pretty costly aswell. But at least you know it can be done

[simonf]

Some places provide this service (I.E shops that basically sell hard drives & recover of data options) I know a few in South Africa but i do not think that would help you

Look for a Data Recovery Service in your area (yellow pages)... normally they have the tools even if the drive is broken/crashed etc