Yes, I know, and one of the best (in the world?) is both Norwegian and a customer of mine, but they are veeeeeeeeeery expensive. In this particular case my customer was able to restore the last backup and re-enter most (!) of the missing data. The alternative was too expensive in this case.

>>We actually had a customer who had a HD crash the day before their dedicated, brand new state of the art server arrived. Since they knew the server was on the way, they skipped backup for a few days....! The HD was dead beyond repair. This was only two months ago.
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>Tore;
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>If a customer is willing to pay for data retrieval from a “dead” hard disk, it can normally be accomplished. I have helped many customers do this. In some cases the HD is so bad that they have to remove the platters to retrieve the data. Depending upon which HD is being used different methods can be used to “fire it up” for one last run.
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>In the 22 years I have been working with HD’s that have failed I have been able to find a source to retrieve data. Costs are typically $50 a file plus other fees. Back up is much less expensive. Here is Silicon Valley we have many sources to retrieve data from “dead” HD’s.
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>Customers almost never learn. Backup is not something everyone takes seriously even after having a crash. :)
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>By the way I always back up all my work! :)
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>Tom