Not good
Firstly don’t boot the laptop or attempt to load anything new to it.
Download a copy of this: Hirens Boot CD
One of the programs on that disk is Ontrack Easy Recovery Pro
Attach a USB drive to the laptop and then boot Hirens Boot CD from the CD
You can try a normal recovery and latter a raw recovery and write the product of that recovery to the USB drive.
A normal recovery will give you the original file name if available where as the raw will create file01.jpg, file02.jpg etc so you will need to open them to see what they are.
Doing it this way changes nothing on the original drive and leaves the door open for other attempts or professional help from a data recovery firm.
Having defragged it is a problem but depending on the system large amounts of files such as the OS and Office for example loaded at the start of its life will most lightly not have been moved so the data area where the photos “might” still be there in part or whole if your very lucky.
A raw recovery will get back anything that can be got.
Good luck let me know if you can’t find a copy of the recovery CD.
The act of booting the laptop can damage your chances as swap and temp files are created in what is now empty space which reduces your chances of recovery.
Boot from the CD and recover to and external USB drive.
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