wanted to give an update as to what I did so that if anyone in future that has this kind of problem can take this route.  I made an image of the hard drive and tried many different things which were suggested on this forum none of them worked for me.  I sent my hard drive the original into a company called secure data recovery they are located in Ohio I believe.  They ran a free diagnostics test on my hard drive and gave me a quote of a little under $2000.  I pre authorized the charge via a credit card.  They gave me a 5-11 business day window to complete the raw recovery.  On completion they charged my card and sent me my request file "wallet.dat" via a dropbox.  This worked great and must say they did an awesome job highly recommend this company! 

I am paying a professional company to do a raw recovery on my hard drive.  Question what exactly is needed to recover my bitcoins from bitcoin core?  wallet.dat file only?

"It is designed for the case where you already know most of your password" this is what it says in description.
Sorry if this is a dumb question but when it says password what is this talking about the encryption password I set up?  If so that's not my problem I cant find the wallet.dat file that also looks like is needed for this to work?  I am running hex editor searching  sector by sector for my bitcoin private key.  I hope!

ok I did this I made an imagine using another hard drive and yes I have not even booted the original drive.  Also I have a ssd this shouldn't make a difference I assume?  Will try this tonight.

this is for finding the password right? I already know my password just need to get my wallet/privatekeys back I think?

ok file did not work... I am going to try and use the hex editor to find the private keys. My wallet is encrypted with a passphrase (password) hopefully this will not be a huge problem but I do know it.  Basically I had a large transfer recently which mainly is the balance of the account.  Am I looking for a public key which follows by a private key eventually?  If I know the address of the transfer does that help?  Do I need only one private key to recover the lost bitcoins?    Any help is appreciated.

I found the wallet.dat file what is next step to take?

iv had the wallet for at least 4 years.  I was able to access the files they look to still be intact I found bitcoin-core1 but it was in a .js file and also a .svg file
not sure how to access the wallet.dat file

is the passphrase the same as the password used to send transfers with?  if so I have that.  Can I use only the passphrase to recover my coins?

what files are required to recover your BTC?  I am having same issue with my bitcoin core and did not back up the private passkey.

I have a few btc on the bitcoin core.  I ran factory reset and did not install any other programs once this was completed. I'm not sure if files are erased I have not ran a recovery program.    Is there any specific file I will be looking for to recover my bitcoin core?  Or my private key?

My computer did a factory reset and erased my files including my bitcoin core.  Do I have to do data recovery through some company to get this back if possible?  Or is there another way to do this?  I didn't back up my private key. I have a desktop with a solid state drive. Thanks for help.