Although not quite that drastic, disassembling a HDD to get the platters out and transferring them to a different casing is a bit of a chore.  To make it easier on you, or to let you know it can be done, AOA Forums have posted a how to on moving your platters.  If you really need the data, and can't pay the professional recovery fees, this article may save your mind.

"What do you do when you have a dead drive with data that you really, REALLY need to recover? Well, you can either send

the drive to a data recovery outfit and spend lottabucks, or you can take the approach of the hardware hacker, and find

another drive in your junk pile that is similar enough to swap platters."

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

  
Storage

• OCZ VBoost USB drive @ DV Hardware
• Vizo Saturno 2.5-inch One Touch

  Backup SATA Hard Drive Enclosure Review @ ThinkComputers

• How to Defragment Your Hard Drive

  Guide @ TechwareLabs

• ASUS DRW-1814BLT SATA 18x DVD±RW/RAM

  Review @ CDRLabs

• LG GSA-H62N 18x

  Super Multi DVD Rewriter (SATA) @ Hardware Zone

• Corsair Flash Voyager

  GT 8GB @ DH

• Akasa Integral 2.5" HDD USB enclosure @ DragonSteelMods
• Air conditioners kill hard-drives @

  The Inquirer

• Corsair Flash Voyager GT – Fastest USB pen drive in the world @ TweakTown
• A-DATA My Flash PD16 8 GB @

  techPowerUp