If you look closely at the air around you, you will see many floating particles of dust. These dust particles are called hydrocarbons in the oxygen clean industry. These hydrocarbon particles are large enough to severely damage a hard drive if these particles were to get inside the internal drive enclosure with the spinning platter and read/write heads. For this reason, an oxygen clean room is needed to ensure clean and filtered air when a hard drive is opened, if it is wished to use the hard drive again.
I have a little experience with oxygen clean requirements for producing oxygen. Those little hydrocarbons can cause an explosion if introduced into an oxygen producing system.
They need to swap out your drive platters with your information to another drive that is working properly. To do so, they need an oxygen clean room. Such rooms have exacting requirements regarding air filters, clothing, and breathing with masks. These rooms are costly.
I have hypothesized that it might be possible to construct a clean room cheaply in the home, in the bathroom after a long, hot shower that fogs the entire bathroom. The water particles suspended in the air would clean the hydrocarbon floaties. However, hydrocarbons would still exist on the person's skin, clothing, towels, and there would be the problem of moisture in the drive.
It seems, there is little that can be done, except to pay them for the service if you want the data back. This is not a final answer though. I just do not have any better ideas at the moment.
