Need help-I can pay-Desperate. Lost photos!

Hello,
I took my computer into the repair shop where they completely "reformatted" ( I think that's the correct term) it and restored it back to as if I had just purchased it. They had talked about making a ghost drive, ect... but I told them no, b/c I had copies my photos onto a zip drive at home. The photos are all I care about.

Well, needless to say, the photos are not on my zip drive. I made some sort of careless mistake :(

They are obviously not on my computer either since they erased everything.


Can you help in anyway to get my photos back?

I have a Windows XP on a Dell computer.

I will pay someone (you) if you really know what you're doing and get get my photos back.... I need help to try to get those photos back. I've tried a few different recovery type programs... I don't think they found anything though.

Please let me know if there is anything you can help with... I'm desperate to get my family photos back. Everything was in my My Documents folder that sat on my desktop.

Other info: They upgraded my memory in my computer and gave me the old memory 'board' back and I have it. There wouldn't be any photos on that would there?
THANKS