I'm very sorry to hear this. Much like you, the only thing on my computer I fear losing is my photos (well, and Quicken data, but that's not an emotional loss if that gets hosed). I would have suggested GetDataBack as well, which I believe Patrick also suggested when something similar happened to me.

As for backing up, I would suggest regular backups to DVDs which you store off-site. And people can say what they will about Dreamhost, but they recently upped my storage from 65GB to 400GB. It would take me years to fill up that space, so in the meantime it'll be a great place to back up my photos. Still, I'm going to be making regular DVD backups and even using a spare 80GB disk (with one of those IDE-to-USB things Tony was talking about) to back up my photos. I then take the disk to work. Every time I load more photos on my computer, I make temporary backups (to CD) or I go through the process I just described. I'm quite paranoid about it these days.

I just can't trust a RAID to protect me from data loss. I even bought a RAID card this week, but I'm just going to run it in JBOD mode. I find multiple physical storage locations to be the only thing that eases my mind. Now, if my house, my office, and Dreamhost's headquarters all burn down at once, that would just suck.