Recovery of deleted files

I don't think I've ever done this before in all my years of using computers but...I appear to have deleted an entire folder of images I was about to upload to my image gallery. I've checked & re-checked in My Pictures and in my Recycle Bin & I simply cannot find them (boohoo--they were images of my three lovely kids). I don't believe I have any software that will allow me to recover them since I switched from Norton Systemworks to NAV 2006 a few months ago. Does anyone think I may have any tools on my pc that I'm not aware of that could help me recover what I've lost?

Also, can someone recommend software that would enable me to recover such files if I make such a bonehead move in the future?