It all would depend on what you are wanting to do with the photos. The 12mp S630 would give you a little more cropping room and the 7x Optical zoom would be helpful in some situations. Considering that the S60 has less Zoom and Megapixels and is only few dollars difference in price than the S630, plus S630 has over twice the internal memory..I would lean toward the S630.
If you are not interested in the extra zoom and megapixels and you were to compare the S560 to the S630 the price difference is much greater. The S560 might be the better choice.

I'm sorry to hear about your lost videos. Sad to say this happens to everyone who use a camcorder regardless of the media. Tape can jam or break, disks get scratched and HDD and Flash can get erased or corrupted. When it comes to Hard drive and/or Memory based camcorders, if any footage is recorded to the media after the erasure it is lost forever. There would be a chance if nothing was recorded after a format or delete, but once new footage is added recovery is less likely to work.
The recovery programs work off of hidden files in the FAT (File Allocation Table). When a file is deleted the name is changed slightly so the device knows it can write new data to that area. If no new data is written to that area the Data Recovery program can change the name back to a readable name again. But...once new data is written the old name does not exist anymore so there is nothing to recover.
You could try taking the camcorder to the Geek Squad and see what else they can recover. They might be able to get more.
If you want to try yourself take a look at R-Studio.

Hard Drive camcorders are nice however...if you ever need to send it in for repair you need to make sure all of your video is off of it and backed up somewhere. You can not remove the drive and just send the camera. Tape and Flash based camcorders have removable media. If you are looking to edit the footage you shoot and your computer has a firewire input a Tape based camcorder is easier to edit with. A flash based camcorder is smaller, lighter, has less moving parts and is less likely to break down.
Record lengths are longer on the Flash based camcorder. Tape is limited to 60mins, 90mins in LP mode. Flash is much longer and is only limited by the size of the memory card used.
So...if you want to edit...Tape is best.
If editing is not an issue....Flash is the way to go.

If you still have a functioning camcorder, than check out the Dazzle from Pinnacle Systems. This is device that bridges between analog devices and the digital world allowing you to capture your video on the computer. You then can edit if required and burn a DvD. For more information on the Dazzle look here: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...
This does require your computer to have a DvD burner.
You can also connect straight to a stand alone DvD burner by connecting the A/V (Audio Video) cable from the camcorder to the recorder.
If you have no working camcorder, try finding a used Digital 8. These camcorders generally can play back 8mm and Hi8 tapes and, if your computer has a firewire port, you can capture to your computer using editing software.
Finally, if you are not the “Hands on” type, you can look for a local Dub House. This is a place that does duplications and video conversions. If you can't find one listed in the phone book try calling a local TV station. They usually know where one is.