A new article by PC Magazine editor Neil Rubenking gives a glowing report on his trip through the clean rooms at one hard drive data recovery facility, with vague indications that these guys might be more "customer friendly" than the majority of such types.

Specifically, he sort of says that they'll take a look your hard drive without an up front fee, and then will tell you how much it might cost to do a recovery. Must data recovery businesses want a fairly substantial fee before they'll look, and then quote how much more recovery will cost.

Whether you're looking for help now, the article might be interesting, at:

Inside the DriveSavers Clean Rooms
ARTICLE DATE: 03.10.10
By Neil J. Rubenking

Notably, Rubenking doesn't give a clue as to how to contact these guys, but does give a link to a "slide show" that illustrates some typical failures, and there I found a "call 800-440-1904" hint.

The slide show is interesting (but rather noisy unless you're prepared to adjust the sound down).

Online Hard Disk Drive Simulator is worth looking at, if only out of curiosity.

I can't vouch for the "free first look" but it might be worth putting the phone number in your phone book if you anticipate that you might have something on that drive - that you didn't back up - that might be worth a few (???) bucks to save.

John