I have a laptop. I can't access my hard drive. I was told by computer experts to get a data recovery process done on the computer. I can't afford this process. Is there a cheap way to do this?
After I recover my hard drive info I was going to use a recovery cd to erase the hard drive then reload Windows. I really don't want to erase my info. until I get it out of there.

You can try this.

Buy one of those cases that let's you mount a hard drive in it and use it as an external drive. (cost about $50 at Circuit City or at most computer stores)

Take the hard drive out of your laptop and mount it in the case. That gives you a USB connection to your drive. Now go to a friend who has a computer. When you plug in your hard drive it will come up as an external hard drive on his computer. Hopefully you will then be able to access your files and burn them to a CD.

If you can NOT access your hard drive this way, then it means the drive itself is not working properly. In that case, you are out of luck.