The high cost of data recovery

This is the update on my 1TB Maxtor external hard drive. I sent it to a local data recovery company for a free evaluation and this was the prognosis:
> Our data recovery specialist had done an evaluation of your hard disk. The harddisk has files structure damage and multiple read write errors. The read/write head electrically damaged, causing file read write access errors. Scratches can also be found on the platter due to misaligned head scratching its surface. We will need to procure another identical Maxtor One Touch III drive to perform parts change to recover the data and also perform a firmware reloading. Platter needs to be refurbished in a clean room environment. After which, a laborious and tedious bit by bit cloning procedure will be performed, which is very time consuming but a necessary and important step to attempt the recovery of your data.
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> Due to the complexity of your data recovery job, we would require around 15 working days to complete it.
The bill will come to S$2,700 if they successfully recover the data. It’s 7 years worth of photos, videos and music. I’m going for it.
My other IT expert friends have told me that data recovery is expensive because it truly is tedious. I can’t do it myself and even if I didn’t use the whole of the 1TB space, there were still a lot of files in there. Still, it is a good learning experience, albeit painful, and I will ensure that there’s enough space on my computer’s hard drive in future to store all my files. The backup system will remain as a backup.