Hard drive failure

Hello,

I have had my MacBook Pro for two and a half years. A few days ago, the "spinning beach ball" appeared on the screen and I had to shut the computer down. When I tried to start it back up, it lit up but stayed on the blank, blue screen and made a repeated clicking noise under the left speaker. Nothing happened after that. I took it to the Apple Store, and the man at the Genius Bar told me it was hard drive failure (I'd assumed the problem involved my battery, which had gone through too many cycles to hold a charge. I'd been plugging-in only for about six months before this point.) He said that it would take $325 to replace the hard drive plus more for data recovery. He recommended some third-party places but said that Apple required anyone working on an Apple computer to send the old hard drive back to the company rather than giving it back to the consumer. This limits my data recovery options, which I know will add quite a bit to the $325 replacement. Do you have any recommendations about how to work on it myself, or where to find individuals who can do data recovery work outside of the limitations of third-party shops? Thanks,

Nik