Yeah spend some time trying to troubleshoot it yourself and learn exactly what the issue is. I am a shit-for-brains when it comes to tech stuff, but after like only half an hour of watching some youtube videos and browsing some forum discussions, i got a basic understanding of hard drives and what the issue with mine was.
No matter what you decide doing - be it sending to a data recovery business, sending it to some dude on craigslist, or trying to buy some tool to recover it - knowing a little bit about what the issue ACTUALLY is can save you a shit ton of money! The data recovery business is RIPE AF and charges out the ass for some fixes, and a lot of it so so fucking simple to fix yourself.
One of my harddrives seemingly died, but after some of that research i learned it was just a circuit board that needed to be fixed. I got quoted for a $500+ fix, but the piece i needed was only $7 fucking dollars shipped. I just asked a friend with a soldering iron to help me set it up and after an afternoon, I had my harddrive fixed up!