I'd finally convinced my father, somewhat of a technophobe, to sit at my mom's computer for a few minutes and give iPhoto a try to print some pictures. We got as far as the part where you press the "Print" button on the screen... then the drive started that dreaded and oh so familiar 'click click click' sound. I'm afraid that my poor dad is now scared for life and is convinced that he is solely responsible for "jinxing" the computer.

I put a new hard drive in the iMac and had it up and running again in a short time, sans three years of data (mp3's, documents, photos)- no back up.

My mother would like to try to recover the data, but if it's not recoverable, she will live. We're considering using a recovery service, which will likely incur fees of $600+.

The other thing that comes to mind is buying the identical drive and either replace the failed part(s), or transferring the platters from the failed drive to the good drive. I expect that I'll get responses telling me that I'd be crazy to try it, I know. I guess one of my questions is, aside from using a clean room, what else is it that the data recovery services do aside from what I've described? Has anyone ever attempted what I'm describing? Does anyone have any advice for me if I do decide to play the part of mad scientist?

If I decide to go the safer/more expensive route, got any recommendations?

Cheers,
-Randy