Well, they should have replaced the drive if it failed within 6 months. But expecting them to go to the lengths of recovering your data for free is a bit hopeful.
The whole point of backups is that you should never expect a single hard drive to stay alive, no matter how young it is. Lots of hard drives with defects die early. For your own sanity, it is best to think of any data you have only one physical copy of as data that may not be there tomorrow. Personally I don't get comfortable until my most important data exists in two physical locations, so fire is not a risk.