Aaargh! External hard drive knackered - any data recovery recommendations?

[moorfield]

and all my other, ahem, "files".

Nah just kidding. I wouldn't be that stoopid. My pron stash is safely uploaded onto an anonymous server in Finland.

But there's some stuff on it that could be mildy embarrasing, but mostly mundane to the average man on the street - vendor software src, docs, manuals, app downloads etc.

[moorfield]

Yup that's the one, about 5 years old now, the mini-usb looks soldered onto an internal pcb.

My local laptop repair man reckons he can put it into an external case for me.

Eventually got round to picking it up. Phew, its worked, and only cost me £35.