What's the most powerful hard drive recovery/undelete program?

[chimerical]

I have a nearly decade-old notebook hard drive, and I'm trying to recover the oldest files possible. I've tried running some basic undelete/recovery programs on it, but they don't go back very far. I'm looking for the most powerful tool for this job out there (Mac or Windows software will do). Any suggestions?

 

[miles01110]

I've tried running some basic undelete/recovery programs on it, but they don't go back very far.

Which ones, and what do you mean "don't go back very far" ? Once something is overwritten it's more or less gone, even if you get a professional to try and recover it.

 

[chimerical]

I actually don't remember the names of the applications I used (this was a couple years back, when I decided to stop using the hard drive to prevent diminishing data recovery potential any further). But they were just a couple of shareware applications on Windows that I found through Google searches.

The results went back maybe a year or so from the date of trying, but I just wanted to make sure I've used the best software solution short of seeing a professional before giving up.