Recoverable Files

[Laxotive]

I have ran the software three times now and at one point in the 22 to 24 hour process it says there are 18333 files but when it is done it only shows 166 files recoverable. A coworker came to me and had a external drive that was not drive lettering and in the process we quick formatted my most important drive. Am I doomed to no recovery other than what I have accomplished? There was no further overwriting done to the drive. Why does it show all those files and then having such a low amount recoverable?

Thanks Much

[Laxotive]

I guess my real question out of all that is:  There was no further overwriting done to the drive. Why does it show all those files and then having such a low amount recoverable?

[mta]

no further overwriting done by you perhaps, but the drive is (almost) constantly in use by the OS.

fire up Task Manager, click on Disk% column and watch the processes jump around.
pagefile, swapfile, event logging, updates, maintenance, resource management, system monitoring and recording, network pings, temp files, recycle bin..... the list goes on)