hard drive recovery service?

So my laptop finally died  My local computer guy told me that my hard drive has failed and he is unable to recover any data. However, he also told me that there are places that exist where I could send the hard drive to that might be able to recover some of the data.  Has anyone ever done this and been successful? I have all of my CDs from home that I downloaded onto the hard drive, and some photos, so it's not massively important but I'd still like to investigate options of recovering the data if it's possible.  And  yes indeedy,  I have learned my lesson about backing up my hard drive from now on    Thanks!!

If you're happy to post it, I used this guy to save mine last year:

http://www.mikewillfixit.com/

He was honest, reasonable and easy to deal with. We did the whole transaction via the post.

Good luck!

You're a Rockstar, Courtney, thanks!!!!