Windows 7: VIRUS has formatted hard drive

i had a bad virus attack on 19/11/2011 and it formatted my hard drive but for some strange reason took all of my files but left notepad files ive used a program to find some system restore files and there from before the 19/11/2011 and there on my usb drive and don't know what to do with them in case i damage my computer more ive lost over 200GB of files what would be my next steps to recover all of my files as ive used one certain program called undo delete and it saying that the all the files are still there ive not done anything else since then

You can still boot into windows, right?

If it were me, I'd make an image backup of the infected hard drive and then try using the undo delete software. Then if it recovers what you're looking for, save those files on an external hard drive and attempt a system restore by booting off the Windows 7 installation disc.

That way, if the undo delete process fails or messes something up, you can restore the image as it is right now and try something else. Otherwise, if it does work you'll have the files you want extracted and can safely attempt to restore the machine without worrying about losing your data. If the restore doesn't work properly you can do a clean install; you'll have to reinstall all of your programs as well but at least you'll have your files

Good luck!

yes i can still boot into it and everything so what do you want me to do as my next few steps and il follow your instructions please as i really really need these files back some way some how thank you

Well you will be able to recover some files with programs but you will never be able to recover ALL the files on the formatted drive

Do you have multiple hard drives/volumes or was the data stored on the same volume as the OS? If you have a standard setup, you most likely have one physical disk with a ~100mb system partition and one main partition for all programs, files, etc. If this is your setup and you can still boot into windows then your drive was NOT formatted

i dont think it completely formatted it as once the virus had attacked the pc and took all of the files windows did not as to be re installed or anything

for all what i know i only have a C drive 290GB hard drive

you say it formatted your hard drive and now your saying that you're still able to boot into windows ???!!

when the vrius attacked my pc i restarted it and it just let me log back in as usual but all of the files have disapiered and it took my hard drive to over 200GB off free space so im not sure if the vrius has formatted it or just taken the files and hidden them or something

My thoughts exactly, which is why I wanted to check the hard drive configuration

@dkny1221 Do you have an external hard drive you can use to store a backup? Not a flash drive, this will need to be almost the same size as your system drive (depending on how full your drive is)