anything with moving parts die out faster then non moving parts, then again my video card always die before anything else...
i have experienced bunch of dead hard drives, sometimes try giving it a light shock like a drop from 4-5 inch, sometimes it can revive a dieing/dead hard drive, whats the worse that can happen since its already broken.
now if you REALLY REALLY need data recovered you can buy a $500+ data recovery service or jerry rig one yourself. lets say you have tons of naked pictures of that chick from stargate, you know the Orici (aka Adria) droool. only problem is its costly and you have to be careful. i usually search ebay or look for the exact same model/version of the hard drive that died, then i open it up (open it up properly and not pry it open) then replace the disks very carefully with the working one, they say you should be in a clean room, but long as you dont throw a handful of dust onto the surface it will work. dont force anything open, also expect some bad sectors since sometimes it does ruin the surface.
when removing disk, theres screws on the center ring, and you also have to remove the aluminum rings. once you open it up and know how it went its a breeze to put it back together, only tricky part is the HD heads, usually you can move them to the side or some comes out.
oh BTW dont forget to get the magnet from the broken hard drive their extreamly strong rare earth type, i've tested it and you can acually open blockbuster dvd cases by placing 2 of them in the strategic location, also fun to play with.
