Hard Drive Failure

This is for a friend, but does anyone know a good data recovery outfit?

His hard drive failed somehow. I haven't seen it, so I don't know if it's a head crash (worst case, I guess) or something else.

He took it to a place that gave him an estimate of 300 dollars, which sounded extremely reasonable to me.

Also, if you know a bad data recovery outfit to avoid, you can tell me that too!

It's stuff of personal value to him, that he created. He's quite upset. I quite understand.

Data is so damned fragile.
He needs a recovery service that's agile.