OT: Data recovery from failing drive

So I need to figure out how to recover data from a failing Hard Disk. Unfortunately the data was not backed up. (Before the flaming starts, it is my girlfriend's drive, not mine... Hadn't gotten around to discussing proper data management. )

• The drive was in an external enclosure. I tested the enclosure using a known good drive and that worked fine, so I know it is the drive that is faulty
  
• The drive won't spin up so I believe the problem is electrical
  
• I've recovered data from a drive before in a similar situation by swapping the PCB board on the bad drive with an identical one from a working drive. This worked flawlessly, but in reading more on this since it seems this is a hit-and-miss technique, and the consequences of missing suck
  

While I had a professional vested interested in recovering the data from the earlier drive, this is tougher since my interested now is personal. I want to recover my girlfriend's data and don't want to make things worse...

So... is it worth trying the PCB switch and hoping for the best? Or will the downside of failing that make it more expensive/difficult to recover later? Should I send the drive to a data recovery service?

Budget is an issue as neither of us are printing money at home, but at the same time, the data in question is about $1000 worth of songs she bought from iTunes, so the value is a definite consideration.

Any advice from people who know technical details about data recovery or having used drive recovery services before would be most appreciated!

Peace,

You can use OnTrack. It will cost $100 for them to analyze the drive and show you a report of what can be recovered. Prices after that depend on the amount of data and the time frame you need it in. It is an all or nothing deal. I've used them several times, and the cost is usually around $1200.