Zev,
Drives really don't fail that often, but they also have an ability to fail at the worst time.
In twenty-some years, I've had 3 or 4 bad moments. Times when you want to find a wall you can beat your head against.
Sometimes there is a way back.
Once, my female-friend-now-gone-but-still-loved had a complete failure, was a disaster herself for a day or two, pulled herself together and took the drive to a local service where they said, "Uh, we have a lot of trouble with these Bigfoot drives. We'll take a look." No joy. Nada y pues nada.
She brought the drive home in tears, and laid it at my feet. I was touched.
For two days, I tried booting her machine and getting data off it. Sometimes nothing happened. Sometimes a few files were visible across the network.
After this time, I thought, It works, quelque-fois, mais pas toujours, et j'ai pense, "le froid, c'est ca!".
I put the drive in the freezer for 30 minutes, put it back in the PC, and "shazam!", everything came off the drive.
I think you will appreciate that there is some luck involved. It's what makes us alive. What makes us hope.