The company someone mentioned below is
Ontrack Data Recovery . Why do I know this? Well, a friend's HD died on her very old laptop last year and we tried everything to get her data back, including sending it here, but it didn't work. Why it didn't work, according to the folks at ODR, is that by the time we sent it to them, we had taken it to two local computer places who tried all sorts of software solutions that were unable to help because the problem was a head scratching on a platter and the continued software attempts wore down the platter. Anyway, ODR was highly recommended and I guess I have to take their word for it. It did reinforce the "backup, backup" mantra, and I recently bought (and used!) a 400gb external HD (only $299 at Fry's) to back up everything in one shot. And yes, I did sleep better.
And BTW, to the guy with the comment about getting a MAC, remember that hard drives are not platform dependent.\
Regards,
Andy Pearlman
Andy Pearlman Studio