Recovery from Boot Drive Crash

I have a HP Pavilion dv9008nr Entertainment Notebook PC that has crashed twice in a year. The first crash resulted in the need to do a destructive recovery. The latest crash was more benign. When I booted up holding down the F11 key, I was prompted to select if I wanted my files and settings saved before the recovery started. I selected yes and for the next 55 minutes the program appeared to be transferring my files and settings to some protected area. When that process was completed and the recovery process finalized I reinstalled my software. However, I can find no saved files. Either the HP recovery step did not work or my files and settings are hidden somewhere on my hard drive. Any ideas?