Thanks for the Recuva info, I had not thought to try that, once I get home from work I still have a few hard drives to check, due to the .dat file being in %appdata% I think I actually have a chance of finding it since I keep my OS on smaller drive and games on larger, and when upgrading put aside the smaller OS drive, make the old gaming drive the new OS drive and buy a new gaming drive. 

As for the amount, I would prefer not to advertise the extent of my stupidity, but perhaps if I find the wallet I'll tell you, then I wouldn't be nearly as inane, right?

Worst case scenario verified, guess I will be spending some time going through my old hard drives tonight just in case

Thanks for the information.

Here's my scenario, would like some help please:

1) I had an old Bitcoin wallet/address # created from the original client, never used. 
2) Computer where wallet/address was created has been wiped for at least 1 year.
3) Due to stupidly holding onto the address of the deleted wallet, it was mistakenly sent some bitcoins.

   A)  Was the money sent to this 'non-existent' wallet and therefore gone forever?  or
   B)  (please please please)  Will the transaction not go through because the wallet was old, gone and never used?

Thanks for any answers you may provide.