BleepingComputer.com: HELP! Hard Drive Recovery Questions

Skip the first paragraph below unless you want to know the reason I'm asking this question.

My Macbook hard drive has failed. When I try starting it up, it doesn't go past a white screen with a "no trespassing" symbol on it. I have tried using the reinstall disks but nothing happens and the disks just get stuck. The data may or may not be recoverable. The Genius Bar could not handle my case, so they recommended me to Tekserve. I went to Tekserve and they told me they would try to get the desired data off and place it onto an external hard drive. However, they said that if they got everything off that I wanted, then the charge would be something over $800. I have done some research and discovered that the price is most likely around the same (and can be more) wherever you go.

Before I shell out this amount of cash, does anyone know how data recovery works exactly?

To narrow this question down, I'm wondering specifically about two things:

(1) Why can't they just automatically get all of my data off, instead of asking me what specific data I want off?

(2) How secure is my data (can I trust that they won't be opening files, or even looking at file names that may suggest important private information?)?

Well, 2 things on this:

When a hard drive fails, they attempt to "decode" the information from the drive. They could take everything off, but they just want to put the least amount cause each has to be "decoded" seperately.

Depending on how Tekserve is about their business, they could rummage through your files and say they didn't. They could also charge the $800 and not get it done at all, considering the fact that hard drive recovery is somewhat risky.

And a question to you-- is the information on your hard drive worth $800? A hard drive nowadays is under 100 dollars (500 GB- 1TB), and the external hard drive they place the data on is worth 100 dollars. So all together, the items you will need is going to cost $200. So really, is your information worth 600-700 dollars? Is it a lot of music, business files, photos, memories, etc, or is it just files you already have but some that you have deleted off their primary source?

Good Luck!