Well, that drive never woke up and I determined its contents were not worth taking it to the big $$ level. I have moved on and purchased a 500GB drive for backing up my video data. What software would you guys recommend for nightly backups? I have been pointed towards Retrospect. Thoughts?

I have used Retrospect since my early Avid days. The interface could be more Mac like, but overall it does the job.

Thanks Jeff. Looks like I'm diving in.

Just to clear some things up, yes those companies might employ
special software to recover the data (you can get some of those
programs for at least a PC as well). However, a GOOD company
goes far futher and actually has a clean room to open drives
inspect them (sometimes repair as well) and have other options
to retrieve data from such drives. Expensive? Yes, always.

If the drive still spins up there might be a program that can recover
(some of) the data. Otherwise only such a company could do it.

The first and most important rule of any data recovery is DO NOT
alter the drive in any way if you want to recover (a GOOD recover
program will not allow you to write to the bad drive for example),
that includes dropping it (unless you have exhausted any other
option and you don't want to pay $$$ and you think the heads
may be stuck).

Well, a long time ago, Apple Computer did actually suggest dropping the Apple III to recover it. Without a fan, it got so hot, some of the chips popped out of their sockets and Apple recommended dropping it to realign the chips :)

cheers,
Peter