Okay, my story:

I decided to install Ubuntu 8.04 on my machine; I used the LiveCD's installation wizard, and arrived at the partition menu. Instead of choosing XP/Ubuntu dual-boot, I thought I would choose "use the entire hard drive" because I had read about some feature called Migration Assistance that would transfer over all the files I had in My Documents from XP.

When I reached the end of the installation wizard, with no Migration Assistance in sight (and the "install" button there ready to press), I decided to cancel the install, open it again, and choose the dual-boot option. Alas, the partition manager wouldn't load, so I restarted the LiveCD and opened up the install wizard once again...only to see no XP/Ubuntu dual-boot option in existence.

I mistakenly tried to use FixMBR and Fixboot, etc., before reading around and using the command "fdisk -l" on the LiveCD. The output showed that my main hard drive was now a Linux partition.

...

Long story short, is there any way to recover my data, even though my hard drive appears to have been reformatted (I haven't actually installed Ubuntu, yet)?

If there isn't, someone shoot me. I believe the installation process is misleading and dangerous...no changes should be made before reaching the end of the wizard. If one suddenly reconsiders partitioning options, or gets cold feet and decides to quit out of the wizard, it looks like one will be screwed. Also, where is this Migration Assistance?