My friends computer was messed up, whenever she would start it up it would give her an ERROR about the internal clock, and then shut down, and all the advice she could GET was to send it to the manufacturer and let them fix it, but they couldn't gaurentee her files would be left intact. We tried a few things but NOTHING would work, so finally I GOT into the restore section, and there was an option to restore Windows XP and it would auto-backup the whole harddrive, so we did it. Low and behold, the computer was able to start up, and most of the harddrive was backed up, except the files she wanted. Her music and her pictures, now, there are some music, and a random folder with about 30 pictures in it, all from different folders. Is there anyway to locate the rest, or possibly get them back from the dismyl abyss...or did I make a big mistake?You might look under "all users" or somewhere else on the HDD for the lost files. System Restore does not normally remove personal files. So they may be on your drive 'somewhere'. I would conduct a thorough search for them before taking any other permanent action.

Use your "search TOOL" and "explore hard drive" thru My Computer on main drive.

Also you may find some tech support at this site for further use:
http://www.aumha.org/win5/index.htm

good luck,
-Jay