What I mean is that you've failed in principle. You shouldn't ever risk being in a position where access to your data may become contingent upon the skills of a

What I mean is that you've failed in principle. You shouldn't ever risk being in a position where access to your data may become contingent upon the skills of a repairer wielding a soldering iron. If maintaining comprehensive backups isn't boneheadedly simple and robust, your vendor is selling junk. But as a practical matter I don't disagree. If you failed to maintain comprehensive backups (or you have suffered a rare double-disaster) then it's great that these hardware repair experts exist.