How important is the data? Not important enough to want to keep the HD that will be replaced and not given back under the Applecare plan??
If the data is that important then do yourself a favour and screw Applecare. Buy yourself a replacement HD and swap it out yourself and that will take care of getting the Mini up and running again. Now you can pop your dead HD into a usb emclosure (......or something) and try to retrieve the data that way, or of course there's the option of taking the HD to professionals which unfortunately costs $$$
I had to pay to get some data back recently - that was nearly $1000.00 !!! Shit happens I guess. I have another dead drive that I'm holding on to coz it contains digitized footage from my old VHS camera and some of my early DV shoots - the tapes themselves suffered a bit of water damage (like two-feet under in the basement!) so the dead drive is all I've got. One day when I have a spare $1000......
If the data is that important then do yourself a favour and screw Applecare. Buy yourself a replacement HD and swap it out yourself and that will take care of getting the Mini up and running again. Now you can pop your dead HD into a usb emclosure (......or something) and try to retrieve the data that way, or of course there's the option of taking the HD to professionals which unfortunately costs $$$
I had to pay to get some data back recently - that was nearly $1000.00 !!! Shit happens I guess. I have another dead drive that I'm holding on to coz it contains digitized footage from my old VHS camera and some of my early DV shoots - the tapes themselves suffered a bit of water damage (like two-feet under in the basement!) so the dead drive is all I've got. One day when I have a spare $1000......