Data lost in partitioned drive while reinstalling WIN

[monash321]

Hi all,
My hard disk has Partion C:(60GB) & D:(20GB) I was reinstalling Win XP Professional in C: with NTFS partition by formatting C: I have my personal files in D: After restallation, I found out that I do have fresh copy of Win xp in C: but all my personal files are lost in D: They are replaced by the previous exact copy of folders C: contained before reinstallation. That'd include files & folders like Documents and Settings, Program Files, Windows and some folers I created in C: before reinstallation. I definitely formatted C: only. It seems like all the files in C: shifted to D: after reinstallation. I don't know how it happened.
Anyone could please help me recover the data from D drive and how it could happen? thank you.

[falther]

Definitely looks like you formated the partition with your data.

If thats the case, the only solution to get the data partially off the drive (where its not yet overwritten by new data)
you would have to use special software - i.e. R-Studio.

Take the harddisk out of the pc - put it into a 2nd one with its own Windows, install there that special software and
then try to retrieve the data from this extra hdd.

... Shit happens ...
No other solution

+++

[Pixels]

Beware of physical partition versus drive letter assigned by windows [in 'my computer'] versus drive letter assignment when booting from the xp cd. The booted partition will always appear as c: in 'my computer', regardless of which physical partition is booted. [there are caveats to this]

But it doesn't add up. e.g. you should have ended up with a dual boot computer, with a prompt at post of which installation you want to boot.
If you did end up with dual boot, then it's almost certain that you have been caught out by drive letter assignment.