youre looking at about 1K to get the HDD data recovered!

i can put another HDD in the laptop for you to see if it works or not, no point throwing it away if its ok. (ive got about 4 in my draw )

also its physically impossible for he guy to detect a physical fault with the drive like that unless he takes it apart.

the fact that its giving you the error message its giving you mean the FAT is fine on the drive, which means the data WILL be accessible. i really dont know what hes talking about saying its completely a no-go