Oh So sorry Jacqui! I DO know how you feel.
Last year a friend's son built a new computer,(clever lad with computers, and a nice lad), but decided to build another and so I bought the first one from him. Faster and more modern than my other one. I backed up all of my stuff onto discs, not really sure what I was doing!
I winced when he dismantled my other PC etc. Once he had set up this one, I asked about putting on my other stuff from my back-up discs. He said that they were of no use as they wouldn't go onto the new system!
I had lots of card designs, verses, links etc on the old one, all lost! That was when I lost my old email addy for some time too! I eventually sorted that myself!
Also last year my brother's friend was showing me how to download photos from my digital camera onto the PC. He accidentally deleted 135 photos from France, from my camera before they had downloaded! I was so upset later when I couldn't find them.
I bought a program from the US for recovering lost/deleted stuff. I downloaded it after buying it. I managed to recover most of the photos? I will try to find what it was in case it might help you too.
love and hugs elaine xx