HELP! Save my hard drive!!!

[Young Salt]

I get home on 9/15 and turn on the computer. connect to the internet, and about 5 minutes later i get this blue error screen. Have to shut the computer off with the power button. I try-with almost no success to reboot the computer about 200 times over the next couple days.
I find this DOS based diagnostic that tells me i have a problem with the IDE drive.
I take it to a computer store, they tell me i need a new hard drive....will charge an extra $80 to pull my info from old drive to new....no problem - i figure, well worth it to get the info back and the computer running again. When i go to pick it up, the say they had trouble and couldn't get the info from the old hard drive.
he says stuff like - it runs, but i had trouble when i tried to copy - the info is still in there - sometimes it'll work and sometimes it won't - on a rainy day, maybe you can get the data from it - you can take it to a systems recovery specialist....for about $500!!! I get the feeling they didn't try TOO hard, they called around 11:00 and i picked it up at 4:00. they didn't charge me the $80.
Now i am S.O.L. i bring the computer back home, and find that i have to reinstall all my programs. All the shop did was put in the hard drive and reinstall windows XP. So i spend the next day or to reinstall programs, just yesterday was able to get internet working.
I have a lot of stuff that i didn't backup....i know i should've but, but hindsight is 20/20 and it's one of those things you don't think will happen to you. is there anyone (or anyone who knows someone) on this site that can help get the data back?