Recuva

It's pronounced "Recover" and it is, amazingly, a file recovery program. On my maimed hard drive, my Desktop and Documents folders said "empty" and refused to open. I installed Recuva and, after some fiddling, retrieved all my emails and desktop documents.

The instructions say you can type a path (e.g. C:/Vacations/Portugal) into the appropriate box, but what they mean is that you can open your favorite text editor, type it there, and then paste it into Recuva; otherwise for each character you type, it starts another search. And if you want to preserve the existing folder structure (you want Portugal within Vacations), you have to find the setting and specify it--that isn't the default.

But everything I'd lost, I got back. Happy, happy!