[icuphotography]

Jesus, make the guy feel better with a smart ass comment about getting a Mac. Not cool.

I don't know your tech guy but you might want to do an online search for data recovery services. There is a place I used once in California. I think it cost me like $600. They were able to recover most everything.

It is never gone. You can remove the platters from the hard drive and use software to pull out data. Companies make their living doing this regardless of whether its Mac or PC.

I just had the same scare myself this week but finally got my backup to work. Initially they showed as corrupted and that was seriously scary.

Don't give up hope.