If smartctl showed *only* a (very) few number of bad sectors, then you can probably repair the drive yourself,

In my admittedly very limited experience, a formerly good drive that suddenly develops bad sectors is usually telling you that there are more to come, that the number of bad sectors is going to increase asymptotically in a pretty short timeframe until the drive self-destructs and no information is recoverable. Most times a newly bad sector is caused by a head that touched a platter during some sort of impact, causing a microscopic gouge in the disk and a similarly microscopic accumulation of material on the head which makes it much more likely that the head will touch the platter again, even with a less severe impact. It's a positive feedback situation where a little bit of trouble causes a lot more trouble.

There may be less common reasons for a bad sector with less catastrophic end results, but the above scenario is by far the most likely.

tanstaafl.