My advise to you would be not to give up...
If the HD was damaged physicly and a company quote you 3000$ with no gurantee, then you need to look for better proffesionals

that do not ask for so much money. Good place to look for would be Russia, as there are a lot of really good technicians who would do it for 100$.
I am in Central America right now and obviosly cant help you, but a for instance Boroda probably can.. His in Russia and i imagine if you send him your HD via DHL,UPS etc maybe there will be a chance..
Anyway I had laptop HD problem as it failed and for 30$ one company was able to recover all of my data, not the HD tho.
Contact someone you know and give it a try, as I am sure a lot of us would be glad to help you out...
P.S. and buy yourself ZIP and CD-RW - thats a second advise

Good luck