What exactly does 'already used' mean ?
The more data is being written to the hard drive after the file has been deleted, the lower the chance of recovering it is.

How big is the hard drive ? And how much do you guess have been written to it after deleting the file ?

Also, if you have already used some recovery program, tell us the name. We can only suggest you 'better' tools if we know which tools you have tried.


The first step to recover usually is to stop using the hard drive immediately.
Then, create an image (better: multiple) of the drive (e.g. using dd) and perform your recovery on the images (preferably on a fresh image for each try).