I need a free, good, file recovery program

Hi all. I just had my house broken into and a few electronic items went for a walk :(. My PC and new 22" monitor were on the sofa by the front door, so obviously the thieves were disturbed before they took everything they wanted.
Anyway, one of the items that went was my daughters 2 week old laptop. She had a lot of stuff on there that she transferred from her desktop that she does not want to lose.
I subsequently deleted everything from the desktop pc and she has given it to one of her friends.
What is the best, free, file recovery program that I can use to try and recover them from her old desktop?

hey there did a quick search and found this on download.com

http://www.download.com/PC-Inspector...-10118663.html

see what you think

Cheers. Not sure if it will work though, as it says on one hand that it supports NTFS, then it says that it doesn't :confused:

Quote:

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....supports the FAT 12/16/32 and NTFS file systems. Finds partitions automatically, even if the boot sector or FAT has been erased or damaged (does not work with the NTFS file system).

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Another one I've had good luck with is Piriform's "Recuva":

http://www.recuva.com/

BTW, sorry to hear about your loss. :(

Cheers. Seems easy enough to use. Now........what we got to catch a thief :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by crunchie

Cheers. Seems easy enough to use. Now........what we got to catch a thief :)

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erm i dont no of any software that could help you with that hmmm

Ugh. Hope at least you were insured.

Ditto for Recuva... best freebie I've used.

I'm sorry for your loss, man...
Another vote for Recuva, here.

Sorry for the Loss Crunchie. Hope you can recover it.
I have often wondered like when laptops been stole if their wasn't a scanner that would scan for the mac address if they was ever to go on line?

I've read some good things about PhotoRec. It's supposed to work for all kinds of files.
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

Bookmarked, just in case :)

Downloaded both. Will be giving it a go over the weekend. Thanks guys :).
Luckily I am insured, so I can at least recover the cost.
They also got away with my ipod touch 16 Gb, Playstation 2, digital camera and a mobile (cell) phone. Haven't noticed anything else yet.

It really sucks. I wish, I could put my hands on guys like those....

Crunchie: I wanted to tell you I was sorry to read this and that I know the feeling (and it's NOT a good one!) :(

Yeah, me too. Broad daylight too, between 10am and 11am. They got into my shed and used my tools to force the front door and the kitchen window open.
There are quite a few blood drops that were left behind that police forensics are going to swab, so hopefully those who broke in are already on record. It's a long shot though.
My neighbour noticed a car in my driveway, but assumed it was one of my daughters friends visiting.