[Sussex] Hard drive data recovery

[alan johns]

Hi 

I need to recovery some lost/deleted files from an ide hard drive. I have downloaded trial versions that run on xp(sorry) and a few do show the files (with quirky dates) but one has to pay £20 to £270 for the full blown software. Which I feel is a little to much to pay if they do not actually do the job they claim. At present I am using Pertro on a 30 day trial, which does give a preview of a few lost/deleted files within the last year, which I was sort of impressed with, tho its run on a master drive, I can set up the drive as a slave when I get the right  software and clone it (G4U1.17).
I mainly use Ubuntu 6.1,7.04 and 7.1 in mobile racks, which knocks spots off M$ software but have to use M$ for work.
Would anyone know of any recovery software that runs on linux or M$ and possibly boots from cd/dvd (to save loading more software which could over write files)? There is a lot to  choose from on the internet but I have no experience with this type of software.

I have been on slug now for over a year and thank all those guys that mail in, as I have learned  so much about Linux again thank you all.

Best Regards
Alan