I have a rather unique computer question

Story: I started playing Minecraft in 2011, and had played it almost continuously since. It had been an integral part of my childhood. About 2.5 years ago, I saved up enough money to get my own PC, and I gave my old laptop to my dad for work. I transitioned all my files onto my new PC, and he wiped the hard drive of all files. About a year after that, I started playing Minecraft again or the first time in 2 years. I realized right there that I forgot to transfer my half a decade worth of Minecraft maps over. I never thought about it until recently. The old laptop hasn't really been used since the wipe, and I thought I could try to get my maps back. I made a post to r/minecraft looking for ideas, and a person told me to check if the system partitions have been overwritten, and if not use file recovery software to get them back.

I know that when you delete something, you don't actually delete it, you just flag it for overwriting, but I don't know how to check for it. The hard drive is only about 20% full, with most of the space being taken up by files for the OS and basics that I had on my old laptop (i.e. Google Chrome, Microsoft Office, etc) so the chances of overwriting is probably very low. My questions are:

1. How do I check and see if the file partition has been overwritten, especially considering the original file location (.minecraft) no longer exists.
2. Are there any good (hopefully cheap) file recovery programs you can recommend for this?

Thank you in advance.