I have preached back ups to my family for years, showed them how to use Carbon Copy Cloner, referred cheap external drives... you name it, but do they listen? By brother's Mac drive had a total failure, but he hasn't back up since 2006. Apple replaced the drive (under warranty) and let him take the dead one. He has important business files and will basically pay whatever it costs to try and retrieve whatever can be retrieved. Does anyone know of a good service where he can ship his drive and let them have at it?
And no this isn't one of those things where I did it and say "my brother." Mom's mac drive died two months ago. I tell you, they both get the back up thing NOW!
I'll never need it because I back up my drives! It only takes is a little imagination to sort this out - business records, family photos and movies, work...
You can also try mac data recovery software.I have used it to recover my files.Download the free demo version of the software from http://www.macintosh-data-recovery.com/
After seeing the preview of your recoverable file go for full version to complete your recovery.