Have you ever had to retrieve data from a failed computer hard drive?
 

My trusty Dell laptop that I've used as my backup computer recently stopped working and when I had a local computer store look at it the tech reported that the hard drive has failed.

The tech indicated the noise I hear (same type of sound that a computer makes when it's ejecting a CD) is the servo motor trying to move the arm that moves across the platters.

The tech told me there's nothing he can do and it would likely cost $400 - $500 if I wanted to send the hard drive to a recovery center so they could try to recover the data on the hard drive by opening the drive in a "clean room" and then seeing how much damage there was to the drive.

Have you ever had a failed hard drive and if so, have you paid to get the data recovered?