I've just had a fairly new hard drive die on me. It's not spinning – I've taken it out of the case and checked it in an external caddy. It was a data drive with two partitions – one for samplebanks (for audio) the other… all my photos. I hadn't yet backed them up. This makes me feel a bit sick.

I've been searching for some prices on data retrieval from dead drives – nothing quoted but I get the impression it will be expensive. Does anyone have any experience of this or can recommend someone to me? Thanks.

You 100% certain it's not spinning? Try a Linux 'live' CD. Maybe there's a corruption on it? A non-Windows O/S may have more luck in accessing it.

You could always try buy another drive (the same, obviously). And swapping the parts over. This is basically what the recovery companies do as a first attempt.

Tip: Once the pro's have the data accessible, the first thing they do is take an image of the HDD. Then they put the HDD aside, and work on the s/w image of the drive. You should always keep your I/O to a failed drive to a minimum.

Warning: Not for the faint-hearted. Once the platter(s) are exposed to air, don't expect them to last too long. Get data off. Destroy.
Disclaimer: YMMV

One tip that sometimes works is to pop the drive into a sealed bag & freeze it overnight
If it spins up the next day, get the data off pronto

It appears I'm more efficient than I thought. I've just checked and I have all the photos (astonishingly 50 Gb) backed up on another drive – which I'm also backing up to DVD right now. I've sorted so much out in the past month that it's hard to remember exactly what I have done.

I can't do much work on the music until I get the drive replaced which is a shame as I've been working with my son on his songs through the Easter holidays. I think the fault is electrical – there's no sign of life and it didn't make any of those grinding noises before it failed. I hope ebuyer are prompt with a replacement.

Thanks for the advice. I'm not sure I'd feel competent taking the drive apart – though if I did it appears lucrative enough to consider starting a business.

Yup, first attempt would be to buy an identical drive and swap the PCB over. Failing that you'd be down to a VERY clean room and start carefully swapping platters across to the new drive hardware. Pro recovery is VERY expensive.