No excuses, no backup, but would like to recover HD data

To the OP - I have used the product Zero Assumption Recovery on several bad hard drives, both my own and some relatives. It seems to be really good at recovering the files, as long as they have not been overwritten. Take a look at Zero Assumption Recovery web site

They have a try before you buy, and since this is a non destructive recovery, you can try it on the bad drive prior to buying it. To me it has been well worth the $60 for the full version.