data recovery after formatting?

i used to have win xp as operating system,then i installed ubuntu on my hard…beside the xp…suddenly,no ubuntu or xp are there…and i want my data on the hard disk…the win xp can`t read my hard now cuz it`s ubntu file system..and i don’t know if my data is there or not…can any body help me to recover my data?how can i do that?
its 80 GB of data ppl :(((

Is data recovery possible in this situation?

I had two SATA 250GB drive in a RAID 0 setup. Both working together. My primary SATA hard drive had a malfunction and I had to remove it, and replaced it with a new drive. Computer works fine.

But unfortunately I lost some data. I can’t even find it in my backup. I think it’s still in that malfunctioning hard drive.

When I put the "bad" hard drive into a docking bay and hook it up to my computer, the computer will recognize it. But it says do you want to format the disk? Of course I have not.

The disk is still usable, but has no operating system. Are there any ways for me to recover data from that disk? How do I find out if there’s still even data on the disk?

Any help or suggestions are welcomed.

What would be the safest choice of data recovery?

This is Yahoo Answers backgroup history of problem:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AuJEpv8y.lSuEPDsddHHsb_sy6IX?qid=20070619081033AAiykAR

I have reason to believe these are the safest options:

a) Remove the hard-drive, add it to another functional unit and transfer all the data to external portable hard-drive. Once data is secured, then do a complete re-install of operating system on problem computer.

b) Create Windows startup disk, use disk at startup effectively bypassing the "broken" startup files. Once into computer, manually move important data to external portable hard-drive.
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10877_11-6031733.html (Option #1)

Does this second option risk any further problems or loss of data??? I can’t risk the loss of any data.

What is my safest option? I am under no time-contraints to do either option. Either action would be performed by knowledgable computer techie.

Any additional comments or things to be aware of?

can data recovery software work without an operation system?

I turned on my computer and it was asking for a system disk. I think that my operating system may have been compromised.