i'd like to recover a file deleted just before i ran a defragment on my drive...is this possible? and how do it go about it?

I don't believe you can undo a defrag. I have never heard of it being done.

Here's two freeware programs which may do the trick;

http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file_recov....htm?language=1

http://www.recuva.com/