Had a Quantum drive crash on me; it was after Maxtor bought them out. It doesn't "sing" but I wanted to throw my $0.02 in on this too.
Why don't they have a clean room for repairs. I think 99.9% of the failures are mechanical, but the data is still perfectly intact on the platters. I know I got quotes of anywhere from $800 to $2400 to get my data back. I don't think so.
If Maxtor, WD, Seagate would offer this service for a couple hundred or maybe even up to $500, they would make a fortune. I can't beleive that someone in management at these HD companies hasn't implemented this...they would be a V.P. in a month with all the newly generated revenue.
<edit> You know, I'm actually thinking of starting my own business in this. Yeah, start-up costs would be huge, but I would way undercharge the competition. Say $500 a drive. Say you can recover 5 a day. About $1,000,000 per year. If you can't recover the data, charge a minimal bench amount to customer and then have a refurb contract with the HD companies.