Recently I had to send in my laptop for repair to the manufacturer. They had to replace the mainboard, but they decided it would be a good idea to reformat my computer while they were at it too. Basically, can anyone point me to a good file recovery software? Something free, that works, won't unload 10000 viruses into my comp when I open it, ect.

I had a similar problem a while back, and I found EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard to work wonderfully, however, that one costs money, so I'd go with one of the two mentioned here, I tried Recuva on mine, and while it got some of the data, it wasn't quite as good as EASEUS was, so I'd recommend trying the other one there first.

Did you need/use/have a key for the "Recover my files" program?

well if they reformatted your computer, you wont get anything back.

a complete reformat is the only way to get rid of files, otherwise they'll stay on your computer, even though you apparently "deleted" them.
and so, since your computer was reformatted, you cant recover your stuff.

unless i totally have my facts wrong in which case feel free to ignore this and laugh at me.

I will ignore this and laugh at you

Formatting simply creates a new boot sector(sometimes), and puts the new file system right on top of the old one, in this case they most likely formatted to the same file system as was already there, so in the case of a quick format, which is also likely what they did, it simply reuses the old file system and wipes all file headers, and also clears out the MFT, even if they did a full format this would have the same basic effect, except it would also rewrite the file system, which would only waste time. So the data tail is still there, he just needs a program to locate it.

Oh, and Vrael, both the ones on that link I posted are freeware.