WOHOO, thanks to the efforts of DC and Mikey all the data on the primary hard drive of Chastity has been saved.
I just poped in the newly formated and refurbished drive and have begun to back up the content that they restored.

I think the lesson for the kids, from all this, is that raid 0+1 is the way to go.

PS. the subject line "Platters not Plantains" reffered to hard drive platters... you see its suppose to be witty... :P