Help - system restore has wiped files and back disks are corrupt

[ConstantlyCooking]

I have been having problems with the pc recently and this morning the only way it would proceed was by doing system restore. I was keen, but thought I should be safe as i have back up disks.
Unfortunately the back up disks don't work and so 4 years of photos and documents (including my course work for my pgce) have gone.
Can anyone suggest anything or recommend a company that could scan the disk and maybe retrieve hthe files.
many thanks

Google "hard disc data recovery" loads come up - I've no idea if they're good or not though - hopefully someone more clued up will come on.

I'm a bit late to this, but the key thing is to not use the PC. Any time you write any more data to the disk, you risk overwriting something you want to recover.

For professional data recovery Ontrack Data Recovery are reputable, but I dont' suppose they are cheap.

How technical are you? If you know what you are doing then the testdisk suite is highly recommended for data recovery, otherwise do you have techie friends or a trusted local computer shop that can help?