F10 mistake, all data lost in recovery

how do i restore my data on my HP running windws xp? It was freezing up after installing pc security shield. My computer kept restarting after startup menu was almost finished loading. I was unaware of any other way to get to uninstall a program that was freezing my com. so i hit f10, did a sys check. all is fine my com said. then i hit the recovery option. thinking it was like restore and i could chose a date to restore it to. i have lost thousands of dollars of info. it doesnt recognize that i have a linksys wireless card that i installed either. Is there something that I can do myself? help..