Yes, sort of... obviously, I got some of it back... reformats didn't work, but fdisk & reformat /s did.
I'm damned if I can figure out what was going on... even after all that, the system gives me info ( like username ) that ought to be gone, utterly. And the CD-ROM is inaccessable and runs constantly for a few minutes after booting.
I may have a newer PC ( or rather, a cannibalized PC ) available- my wife remembered an abandoned unit at work; negotiations are underway...