Howdy.

One of my co-workers had his hard drive die on him. We took the machine to a
data recovery shop and they were able to get some of his files back.
According to their tech, the only way they could do it was to transfer the
data bit by bit.

About 50% of his files are usable. The rest of them, though, when he opens
the files, it shows a lot of gibberish characters and what looks like bits of
machine code.

The data recovery shop, of course, has a zero-fault clause in their contract
so it's not as though we can go back to them for rectifying this. Are there
any tools available (preferably free or cheap) that may be able to repair
some of his files, or is this a lost cause?