[Balanor]

Question, though - would it be possible for us to use the retirement system here? Maybe tell the server that everyone had just retired a (for argument's sake) level 8 character? That way people would get a bit of a boost on restarting any characters, it would (theoretically) be minimal work for the DMs, and it could only be applied to one character per player, and even then only characters made before the next server reset, so we shouldn't have to worry about exploits.

Unfortunately, there I no automated way to do that since character levels were lost with the character file and databases. DMs could manually give X amount of XP to reach a certain level if it's determined that's the route to take, but as that is getting to the character rebuilding details, I'd need to discuss with them and have a plan in place for everyone as we move forward.

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I called the place that Bert linked to and the person I spoke to sounded like English was not his first language and we had these uncomfortable pauses after I'd ask him a question in which it seemed like he wasn't getting exactly what I was saying. They are by far the cheapest option...but this call didn't give me a lot of confidence in them. Of course, since it is 'only' NWN data, maybe we don't need the best...?
I also called Kroll Ontrack http://www.krollontrack.com/ps211-data-recovery/ and spoke to a guy who seemed much more knowledgeable and gave the impression he knew exactly what was going on. He *seemed* to believe they could do it for around $1000, but their prices vary between $700-1300. The nice thing with them is that they diagnosis and determine what they can recover before they charge, unlike Best Buy who takes the money first and even if they can recover only a bit, charges that much.

So long story short, in either case, I'm having Best Buy send me back the drive and will look at sending it away to another (cheaper) location. If anyone has other recommendation to check out, please post them.