If you reformatted the hard disk prior to the reinstall then everything from the old install is lost. There is nothing you can do about that. If those backups were on the same partition as the previous installation of Windows, then they have been deleted as well.
If you carried out a 'Repair' installation, then that would normally just replace System files, and your Documents folders and other folders should have remained intact, but nothing is certain in such repair installs, so that is why we backup before carrying out a repair install. Backup means copying those documents, photos, music, videos and other personal files off the hard drive to some other storage media.
I suspect that a 'Reinstall' over the top of an existing install may replace everything as does a reformat and install, although in XP a reinstall from original the setup CD would often fail because the existing XP installation has been upgraded to SP2 or SP3 through Windows Updates, and the reinstall will baulk at over-writing that.
So, we really need to know what you did. You said you received step-by-step instructions. From where?
Mark