Deletion of all Word documents after install

This is a bit complicated...my Norton Antivirus
subscription ran out...I bought a new one for 2004 online
and downloaded it. As I was installing it, it said that
2001 was still on my machine and I had to uninstall it. I
did this a few times and each time my machine could not
find 2001 but the 2004 program kept telling me it was
there. I am not sure if 2001 becasme corupt or I had a
virus, but basically my windows became corrupt. The
control panel, My computer Word etc no longer worked yet I
could find things in Windows Explorer (I am using Windows
ME). Anyway, I was out of options so I reinstalled
Windows ME. This fixed the problems and I was also able
to install Norton 2004. The problem is that since then,
all of my Word documents were deleted and no longer exist
on my machine. Shortcuts to some documents exist in my
Windows/Application Data/Microsoft/Office/Recent folder
but when I try to open them I get a message telling me the
shortcut points to a file that no longer exists. Does
anyone know how I can possibly recover my Word documents?

shortcut points to a file that no longer exists. Does
anyone know how I can possibly recover my Word documents?

If those documents are really important - and you're accessing this group
using that machine, stop using it, now. The longer you use it - even just
leaving it running without actually doing anything - potentially makes it
harder to recover the data (and thus more expensive. It's one of those
industries catering to the desperate and the prices reflect that).

You're probably already beyond standard downloadable data recovery software.

Or - no offense intended - the fact that you've done this in the first place
suggests you would have a steep learning curve using the kind of software -
that needs to be run from a drive other than the one the lost data is on and
*might* still be able to recover those files.

If you have to have those documents I suggest you look in Yellow Pages for
Data Recovery, and expect to pay a lot of money.

Shane