I work in I.T. so I have the tools necessary to recover data from crashed drives, but it all depends on the severity.  I would recommend do not mess with the drive in anyway till you have a sold method of recovery.  Having said that... here are some good tools for you try.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/  <--- full of tools that can help you recover your data.

http://myrescue.sourceforge.net/  <--- helps recover data from damaged drive.

2-3 Years is the optimum life of a Hard Drive... yes I know, you can have a drive last 6 or 10 years... but those are becoming a rare thing now a days.

Backing up DVD:  This is what I do.

1. ZIP or RAR (Split To multiple files 50,000 Bytes).
2. Create Parity files of these Zipped or RAR Files. http://www.par2.net/
3. Finaly create a QuickSFV File http://www.quicksfv.org/
4. Create a Folder called Tools and Include the original install files
   for Par2 & QuickSFV and maybe even WinRar or WinZip.
5. Burn Everything onto DVD + Enable Verify when burning.

What the heck is Analog-X64 talking about??? Is he out of he's mind?? :) Maybe.

What the above does is, in the event that the DVD is scratched or goes slightly bad over time.  You can recover your data even with Bits missing because the Parity files will Re-Build what is missing, depending on the extent of the damage.  This may Chew up 5%-10% of the overal Data Capacity but in the end its a safety net.

Buy a NAS Drive... stick 2 x 500 GB Drives or whatever you can afford and schedule the NAS drive to copy data from Disk1 to Disk2 nightly (Do not use Raid 0 or Raid 1).