Mistakenly reformatted external drive with work files

bulldogg233_39427c21f2

I have an iMac, and had many .DAZ, .Duf and other files saved on an external HD, which I stupidly erased/formatted.  I have been making images on and off for 5-6 years

I have run recovery apps, and can see many files to restore, but I don't think the apps are finding the file format, much less the file name I gave them.  And the app is pulling up files that were on the drive before, so I've got literally thousands of files to sift through.

Has this happened to anyone?

Is one app better for restoring file formats and names than another?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

bulldogg