And you should definitely let us know if you really found a way out of these or not to recover your BTC, else we are all wasting our time here.
AlexBuckland already asked the same question in the Electrum board two-weeks ago and received enough valid suggestions and answers already.He posted a questionable .rar archieve and deleted it as instructed by mocacinno.
So by repeating the same thread and posting it here in Beginners and Help (where there are lots of newbies),
it raised a red flag.
Here's the previous thread and the replies.
If he tries to post or PM you with the alleged "wallet.dat" and the passphrase, do not download it!
@AlexBuckland If you're legit, try installing the old versions of Electrum back when it generates electrum.dat (or any name.dat) file instead of default_wallet.
Download the old version here: download.electrum.org, switch-off your network adapter and open your copied wallet.dat (make a backup because electrum sometimes modifies the file after opening).
If successful, extract the SEED and restore it to the latest version of Electrum.
Off-topic but newbies! take note: Keep away from Velkro's links in his Signature, it's a scam!
Could this be linked to the latest exploit in WinRAR? We have seen that the older WinRAR application has got an exploit, where a .exe can be pushed to the startup folder. So if he can get more people to use the older version of WinRAR to decompress the file, he could in theory get to their coins.
It is a bit suspect that he or she is trying to get advice for a second time on the same problem.
Let's hope he or she is honest with their request and that there are no hidden agenda. 
