Professional data recovery is an extreme measure, meant for people who have very important data and a very badly damaged hard drive.

My friend had a 40GB that he dropped from about 5ft (GG!) and as a result the circuitboard cracked. He had no choice so sent for prof data recovery - they take the platters out and perform magnetic scan 1 by 1. Cost - about 1k plus.

In your case, if it's just corrupt, yup, use software. Earlier there was a post about low level format. Do not do that lol.