i just had a hard drive failiure and lost 500 gigs full of stuff!
i just lost loads of pictures i took, and also all the worked i produced since i used 3dsmax! that means, 4 years of hard working gone, just like that! the only thing i have, to be able to show what i do are the low rez renders (640*480) i have on my website, along with my demo reel...
Yep....unless you accidentally swiped your drive near a giant, hi-powered magnet, chances are quite high that you'll be able to cover nearly everything.
And if you can't do it on your own, there are some companies out there that will do it for you (ie...remove the actual disks from the drive casing, and recover the data manually)....although it will cost a pretty penny, so only use this option if it's absolutely necessary!