Hope tha the firm that you did use was a reputable one and not some sort of computer repair shop.
A any rate it will be interesting to know the outcome of this !!!
If you decide to go forward with this "recovery" and gamble with client's drives please do come back to this thread and tell us if you did manage to get the data back or at least get the drive to read something !
Also let's see how many sets of heads you will need use for this recovery attempt !!!
Regards and wishing you good luck ....
Goes without saying you shouldn't be opening the client's drives outside a HEPA 100 clean room or laminar flow workbench ... doing so might prevent further recovery attempts by other (more competent) data recovery firms.
Why don't you try for example to send the drive to someone like drHDD for a 2nd opinion ?
memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=31114He does have a huge amount of experience with head swaps and the price is very cheap as well (in the majority of cases) so you will be far better than attenpting to open yourself a client drive without clean room even more if the drive is un-recoverable by a reputable data recovery firm ...
I hope i'm not violating a rule with reviving a dead thread, but i'm having the same issue talked about here and I saw you mention drHDD, i was thinking of utilizing his (their?) service, but i don't know how to go about reaching them.