Can i retrieve my family photos? Hard Drive Formatted and New Operating system...

[Erick C]

...installed!? I formatted a hard drive to install Windows Xp (spanish version) to one of my desktops....however, i forgot to make a copy of my pictures and family videos that i had in there!, is there anyway to get that back or is it lost forever? i looked at some forums, and some said that they can be retrieved, but none of them mentioned if the files can be retrieved after it was formatted and an operating system was installed. Anyone know what i can do? TY