Left my computer (running XP) copying files to an external drive. Came back a few hours later, and the laptop was pretty hot and had frozen (Ironic aint it). Forced a reboot, and the laptop HDD hasnt worked since. Set it up in an external enclosure, but XP cant mount the HDD to a drive letter, but is able to recognize the manufacturer and drive size (Hitachi-320GB). No noise or rattling when the drive is spinning, but I cant get anything off of it, since i cant mount it, or see much of anything. Computer repair shop ran some software tests and says it came back with a "Zero Sector bad" message, and need to send it to a professional data recovery service.

Any other options or ideas, before I have to spend thousands of dollars to recover my data?

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!!! I'm desperate and a poor student!

Thanks in Advance, -Jay