Windows 7: Deleted videos need recovering after reset to factory settings.

My wife reset our old laptop to factory settings before we gave it away.
She has now discovered that she has not transferred 6 months off videos from our daughters lives which was stored on the laptop.
These were not backed up as I was away working.
Is there any way we can recover these videos?
The operating system was vista.

You may try Recuva Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery - Free Download first.

Next PhotoRec. PhotoRec - CGSecurity

My tut Guide to using PhotoRec recovery software.

EDIT: Recuva is the easiest to use. But according to some trials, PhotoRec was able to recover more than Recuva. Hence my recommendation: Recuva first followed by PhotoRec next. You may gain or not gain more, but definitely you will not lose anything.

I can recommend Recuva, but you'll need something like an external drive as well to save the recovered files.

Yes i do have a exhd to work with and 2 laptopsThank U for all answers i will try recuva
Will let u no how it goes as waitin for old lap top to come bac

When you use the reset to factory defaults of a laptop, the harddrive where the videos were stored is completely erased and the factory software (Windows) is restored to the harddrive in its original condition. It will not be possible to recover anything from before the reset was innitiated because it no longer exists.

Actually, there is a chance to get it all back, even after a format.
Nothing is ever erased, and a format does not erase DATA.
Once it has been written over, it can still be recovered, although may be a bit more difficult.

I've no wish to get involved in an argument, but I have to question the validity of that statement. I'm under the impression that when a file is deleted, only the placeholder is removed, effectively releasing the HDD space for more data, but leaving the original file in place until it gets overwritten several times.

Last year I mistakenly deleted a partition on my hard drive that contained over 5,000 JPEG images, but Recuva enabled me to restore them successfully, so I think it's worth at least trying to get the OP's files back.