Then we call up http://www.drivesavers.com and have them recover it.

If you can live with its loss and want to try Do It Yourself recovery there is a way to do so SAFELY and for under 99 bucks. I buy a second USB HDD and clone this onto the new drive. Then I can safely test recovery software listed at the top of this forum without fear of corrupting the original.

At this point you can tell the forum if your 3 years of work is worth 99 (or less) bucks.
Bob