External Hard drive fail

Hi,
Back again, this time a different issue :-o

I have a WD Elements desktop 1tb external hard drive. Its about 1 1/2 yrs old, but this has all my photos on it, all the ones from when my son was first born etc...... IN THIS CASE, I DONT WANT TO LOOSE THE DATA

Anyway, had my HD sitting on the table when my son pulled the cord and it fell, long story short, took it to a computer tech as the USB port was broken, the guy fixed the USB port no problems, plugged it in via the SATA cable directly to his computer, was running a little slugish but was still running. I was using it for about a week and now my computer failed to install it. Was working fine until now. I have tried installing it into my laptop but same issue. I rang the tech place back, the orginal guy wasnt working so spoke to another guy which he advised to bring it back down to see if it may be the new enclosuer or the HD itself, the guy tried everything but seems to be the hard drive itself. I asked him is there anyway I can get the data off and he said yeah it I sent it away and paid $800 for which is still not garanteed.
First off there is no way Im paying $800, I read articles online that it is possible but really need guidelines,
secondly, I simply cannot loose the data on there, so many photos, music, movies, highly important documents for work etc.

Is there anyway I can some how get the data off the HD?

Thanks

 

Oh by the way Im using windows 7 64 bit if that helps

 

anyone have any ideas?