Media Cache and File Retrieval (post catastrophic event)

I had a catastrophic computer event. Many AE/AI source files for my website projects have been deleted and are unretrievable. They were on my desktop (Mac) which is also where AE Autosave is/was. However, my AE cache files are still intact. Is there any hope that the cache files would be useful in recreating/retrieving my source files? I know it's a long shot but there is a lot of data there. 
Thank you.