How can I get my background settings back?

How do I get all my computer files back? Sorry for the length of it:/?

• Before you read this I want to apologize for the length of this, I'm not happy about what has happened and I'm half ranting half telling the story(and I like writing in detail which is extremely obvious..) So last night I left my laptop open, yes dumb, but I was tired.. So at least I set it on the chair first.. Plus I had the Sims 2 open so I didn't want to close it because it would mess up the game. Anyways, I woke up various times in the night and my game was open, still, perfectly intact. Well when I woke the final time at 8, I noticed my computer was off. I thought this was odd, but sometimes when I leave my computer open it'll update itself and that'll require the system to restart. Of course I also realized my brother may have shut it off(or maybe he purposely jacked my computer up?) because he likes to make me mad(he's a jerk). So when I woke up I restarted it, and I noticed my computer background was the default and internet explorer's icon was in the place of chrome's at the bottom of the screen and all the default stuff(I have Windows 7 if that helps) That pissed me off, and I opened sims to check my game.. And all my sims 2 custom content was gone and ALL my saved games were gone. At this point I was very, VERY angry. I closed the sims not in the mood to deal with the loss(I love my sims, can ya tell?). I felt like listening to music so I opened iTunes. ALL MY MUSIC WAS GONE. So at this time I checked other things(downloads, pictures, etc) and a lot of my personal files(except the recyle bin which I checked for my files-not there:/) were gone. Bam. All my half finished books, songs I had written, notes to self, poems, etc, were gone. I was(and still am) soooo mad. Anyways the point of that up there ^ is that a lot of my files are gone now, whether my brother got on my laptop and restored it to factory settings(which I'm doubting do to my recycle bin being full, and my sims 2 games were still downloaded, even though they were stripped clean), or whether he did something to piss me off.. He opened up pictures of dead cats before when I was in the shower so I know he's capable of doing it(plus he's a computer genius, but there's no way he'd help me). Or maybe it's just my computer being retarded.. Anyways, WHATEVER the case is does any kind soul have any advice as to how I can get my files back? I've seen system back up and restore but I'm hesitant to do anything as I don't want to lose my files forever. Thanks for any and all help, and once again I apologize for the length of this.

• Answer:

  use data recovery software