Recovery of files AFTER System REFRESH not reset

[mch2929]

Performed system REFRESH (not reset) on teenage daughters laptop. Like so many her age, everyone thinks they are pc expert. She uses her laptop mostly for school but for a few years now she has been writing 3 books. While most teens do what they do, my daughter writes for entertainment, no games, no dark web etc. She's a good kid. Doesn't even text on her phone. Two users on machine. Backed up files on stick drive but user 2, my daughter not saved.  other then setting up user accounts after refresh, laptop has not been used for the most part in an effort not put anything on the machine. Although I've tempted, I have NOT tried any recovery software yet.I just have to recover these files. PLEASE HELP she'll be heartbroken and I already feel like the absolute worst parent i the world and have lost sleep over this.

[WAWood]

@mch2929

Contrary to popular belief, and Window REFRESH does not retain everything from the current installation.

Your best bet, at this point, is to use data recovery apps to try to find and retrieve the "lost" files -- which aren't actually gone, but they will be overwritten, as you continue to use the PC.

Your best bet for recovering data now is to do the following:
1) Remove the hard drive from the old PC
2) Purchase a USB-to-Hard Driver adapter kit (like the one illustrated below)

3) Connect the old drive to the working PC using that adapter
4) Download and install this utility on a working PC http://www.majorgeeks.com/news/story/recover_data_in_3_steps_with_minitool_power_data_recovery_free_...
5) Run the data recovery utility to see what can be retrieved from the old drive.
 
If that tool does not find what you need, an alternative is Recuva  http://www.piriform.com/recuva
 
And, if that does not work well, the best tool out there is this one, but only the trial version is free  http://www.file-recovery.com/

[mch2929]

I'm guessing removing the hard drive method is prefferred over dowloading software as the download will overwrite data I'm trying to retrieve? 

[WAWood]

@mch2929

Sorry for the late response ... I've been out ...

Any usage of the drive is risking overwriting files that have been "deleted".

The removal of the drive is so that it does not get used, giving you time (hopefully) to retrieve the files before they get overwritten.