I had it happen to me. Even worse when you have young kids and have the first few years of their lives on there too - Imagine the grief this generates from the mrs. Mine was hysterical at the prospect.

For me it was the hard drive in my laptop which failed so I drove it to the data recovery specialists I located about 70 miles from me in Surrey and a couple of days later they called to confirm they had the lot and for £650 plus vat its mine. (no obligation!) I paid it.

I now have 3 points of back up running automatically. 2 online vaults and an external HDD.

Lesson learn't for me.

Hope you are able to recover your memories.