Need to recover files lost during osx restore!!!

I made a HUGE mistake and had apple restore my old laptop to "new" and it turns out that a lot of data was never backed up. I desperately need to retrieve this stuff--- pictures and documents. Please- if anyone knows of anything I can do, please let me know-- it's a macbook (black version that's a few years old).

G'day and welcome to the forums and it is a pity you come in so distressed.

Recovering deleted files is a HUGE expense and you should have backed it up prior. You might try Data Rescue 3 by Prosoft demo version and if it looks like it may work, you will have to purchase the full version. In this day and age we all need an external HDD to backup important files and folders.

http://www.prosofteng.com/downloads/

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but there's very little chance -- at any price -- that you'll be able to salvage much if anything. The drive was both reformatted AND a new system + apps put on -- this has likely overwritten most of your old data.

Data Rescue 3's trial will let you know what's recoverable. Beyond that we're talking a couple thousand bucks for DriveSavers, and at this point I doubt they'd be much more successful.

Sorry.

PS. BlackBooks have been around since 2006/2007, and you never backed it up ONCE in all that time? I know now is not the time to lecture, but while I wish you all the luck in the world, I do also hope you'll proceed into the future a little wiser.