When I needed to do this, I bought
active@ uneraser. Their demo version won't recover any files, but it will let you view to see if files are there and recoverable.
When I accidentally did this (around May 2002), I, like you, looked freeware first, but couldn't really find any. So, I coughed up the $50 for uneraser. For me, I considered my lost files to be worth that price (I had personal digital pics on there of my family, which I considered well worth the cost)
you may want to look at their other products, as they also have one that recovers entire partitions rather than just files.
link to their products page
hope this helps.