How does one GET BACK DELETE FILES?

It wasn't backed up in iTunes?

 

No, there is no way to recover lost data on the iPhone. If it's gone it's gone.

 

Definitely look into this. Unless you've explicitly gone out of your way to disable this feature, iTunes backs up the contents of your iPhone/iPod Touch every time you sync.

In iTunes, look in Preferences -> Device. That will list all of the available backups of mobile devices, along with the date the backup was made. If one of those matches your device, and is recent enough (but not re-backed-up after you wiped out the phone), then:

On the system with iTunes, go make copies of YOUR_HOME_FOLDER/Library/Application/Support/MobileSync/Backup right away. That should be the most recent backup of your phone. Make a copy of it right now, so the backup stays safe. That way, you can try to restore multiple times in a row without risking that iTunes is going to re-back-up your newly empty phone, and destroy your only copy.

When the phone is restored, iTunes will ask: "Set up as a New Device, or Restore From Backup". Your backup will be included in that list.

See more here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766 and http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414

 

I'm not sure on your logic here...if you already reformatted the device, the data is going to be gone, regardless of if you turn it on again. You don't have a backup from before you accidentally reformated? If you hadn't backed up relatively close to the point where you reformatted (which would be a bit foolish), you're probably screwed.

 

Shut it off for 2 weeks is what you do if you drop it in the toilet. How would that help in restoring data that was formatted over?

 

if you use it, there is a higher chance of wiping over the data (and no, formatting does not delete the data, it just makes it MUCH harder to recover)

you can recover data off of a formatted drive, but chances are most of it will be useless, unless you want to pay a professional company to do it

 

I am still confused at what data he is afraid of losing?