How to get data from “dead” hard disk drive?

I went through few questions (see the list below) but haven’t found the answer to my question...

The question is what software can I use to analyze to find out if I can get any data from my Seagate ST300003U2 External USB hard disk drive.

It was lying in a drawer for few months unused and few weeks later I wanted to access my backed up pictures there and Windows now will not recognize it properly after plugging it in and Ubuntu will not detect it at all.

I went to the professionals and they quickly tried by connecting to a Win machine and told me that if I left the drive with them there they “might” recover something. I asked how they would do it and the I was told that they got some tool to run it against. I want to try them by myself if there is any free version. Of course they did not tell me name of the tools.

Any idea what free/opensource software on Windows or Linux or self bootable solution I can use to analyze such a hard disk drive?

UPDATE

I get this message on Win7. So there is no issue with cables or so in my eyes. I wonder why Ubuntu gives me no message.

I got this from Device Manager: Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)