Foulup: Recover Previous NTFS Partition in Vista

Okay, I've fouled up.

I was installing Windows XP in anticipation of my upgrade to Vista
64 and then I made one of the most boneheaded mistakes to date in
regards to computers. My previous SATA RAID array was the same size as
my IDE hardrive (used for backups). After going through the blue prompt
screens for installing Windows XP I decided I was going to reformat the
RAID array. Well, not paying attention, I accidentally deleted
(unmounted, is that the proper term?) the actual IDE hardrive partition
that was holding all my files with the backup.

After realizing that I had removed the partition I didn't follow up
and format that drive. Nothing should be lost I'm thinking, as all I
did was get rid of the partition and not overwrite the previous data.
Next I actually setup the proper partition on the SATA RAID and
installed XP and then Vista without any issue.

Upon re-entering Vista however, the hardrive that has all my
precious files on it shows up under the "Computer" window. Double
clicking it just prompts you to "You need to format this drive before
you can use it". Obviously I don't want to format over my files, but
rather recover them.

Is there a way to remount a partition using Windows or some other
diagnostic tool from a 3rd party? Nothing is deleted that I know of,
but I need to find a way to make Vista see it as a proper volume again.

Any ideas or suggestions?