philo said:
snip
Even the very act of installing "undelete" software can over-write the
file.
snip
There is recovery software that can be run without being installed, from
a USB stick.... but the host computer is still turned booted into
Windows and possibly overwriting deleted files in the process, so your
idea of running the hard drive attached to another system is better.
Attaching the drive to another system via USB is better than attaching
internally, so as not to have System Restore attempt to write an SVI
folder to the drive.
A bootable Linux Live CD is a way to start the system without writing to
the hard drive, and from there the user can use recovery software from a
USB stick, or integrated on the Live CD. Just thinking out loud...