The external hard drive that I had connected to my Wii U feel on it's side and stopped working correctly. It started making noises and caused the Wii U perform very slowly, and often making it crash. I took it to Best Buy Geek Squad and they said that there was nothing that could be done for it, and data recovery services would be way too expensive. So I went home and tryed to transfer as much game save data as I could back to the main consol, since I know that I can re-download the games themselves once I get a new hard drive. I lost my Batman:Arkham Origins data completely (It doesn't show up on the system at all any more), and I've come to accept that loss.
But, what I'm really worried about is my Wii Fit U Data. I got the free version of Wii Fit U that was offered November through January, and even bought a pedometer so that I have unlimited access to it. Every time I try to transfer the game off of the hard drive it ends in failure. I'm afraid that if I loose the free copy of the software that I'll be unable to re-download it and have to pay for the full version. Will the eShop let me re-download the free version even though the promotion has expired? I could probably get the save data off of the hard drive if I delete the game, but I'm not sure if I should.