Lost files.. Please tell me I can find them

Hi Guys

i am really hoping that this isn't a complete lost cause and someone is going to be able to help me. I have used this forum a number of times to research issues I have had and always found the answer but this is my first post so at present I am optimistic.

I was using Illustrator CS5 with a number of documents open when I had to leave my office to deal with a screaming daughter. I was then a little distracted before I managed to get back to my laptop. To my horror my laptop had installed some updates and automatically restarted. And you guessed it my files were gone. I know I know I should have been periodically saving them as I worked on them and stupidly enough I had with one but not the others.

I quickly checked the recycling bin to see if a back copy was there as I had heard that this is sometimes the case. I did find one document that was modified at the correct time and date but with some random name. I tried restoring it to find out what it was and now have no idea where it has been restored to.

Where would it be? Could this be the document I am looking for? If not can I get them back?

Please tell me there is hope.

Thanks for your time.

An autosave would certainly have helped me avoid this situation which is clealry my own stupid fault but unfortunately not going to help me get the documents back.

So pissed with myself.

I am lost mate, I have been all over this F***ING laptop and can't find anything resmembling it. Tried searching with a number of different fliters and either get a ton of files of which nune seem to be anything helpful or I get nothing at all.

Chhers buddy, fingers crossed.

It may be too late for this, but have you tried a System Restore to the most recent date just before the Updates were downloaded? If that doesn't work, have you tried uninstalling the Updates that caused the problem?