From the testdisk homepage (https://www.cgsecurity.org)
Data recovery
If you have lost partition or strange problem with your hard disk partitions, run TestDisk to recover your data. TestDisk detects numerous filesystem including NTFS, FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, ext2, ext3, ext4, btrfs, BeFS, CramFS, HFS, JFS, Linux Raid, Linux Swap, LVM, LVM2, NSS, ReiserFS, UFS, XFS
It IS a recovery tool.
And I had used it successfully for NTFS data recovery from a faulty harddrive.
Ah OK.. I think I had it confused with something else.
I still maintain if he's this lost he is better off going to a data recovery specialist, rather than trying to do this himself... especially if the data is really important. As said, the more he messes with it, the lower his chances of recovery become.