Windows XP whipped with linux installation, is restore possible?

"If you actually deleted/formatted the Windows partition to install Linux, you may be out of luck as the larger files are probably overwritten, however you should still be able to recover the smaller files.

For recovery of files, I recommend R-studio for a professional product, or Recuva (Available on Ninite) for a free Windows solution. For linux, I can't really recommend anything as even for Linux file recovery, I usually rip out the hard drive and use R-studio.

You will be looking for C:\Documents and Settings\<User>\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\(GUID)\Microsoft\Outlook Express

If however you installed Linux on a different partition, you will need to put in your Windows setup disk and basically rebuild the boot sector / Windows Boot Loader. To do this, Press R on startup to launch the Recovery Console and then type fixmbr followed by fixboot. You can find out more information about the recovery console here."