Re: recovering files
If the recovery brought up files you had been working with a year ago, then I am afraid there isn't much you can do now. Windows has a funny way of writing to disk, so it is possible your newer files may have already been lost. Recovery programs may also produce "Frankenstein", in that, half of the file may be old and half new, or even a clobbered up version of two files. It depends on what had happened during the write.
You said you quickformatted the drive.
What happened, and why were'nt you making incremental backups of your work on CD/DVD if they were that important and long-term?