What did they open up - the computer or the HDD? If they opened the HDD in anything other than a clean room, it may have been contaminated internally. Do a search on "data recovery services" and read through the reviews for them - then call to determine cost and timeframe. Make sure you're sitting down for the cost discussion - data recovery from failed drives can be expensive.
If the drive is the internal drive of a laptop or desktop and you are technically savy, buy a replacement drive, reinstall the operating system, get a disk recovery utility for that OS, connect the drive as an external drive and see what the recovery utility can do. IMHO, if you're on a Mac, this is slightly easier than on a PC.
From henceforth, adopt a regular backup procedure. Multiple backups in multiple locations (to avoid the risk of a disaster at your primary location). I make image backups *every week* of my primary storage, and monthly of my backups. Image backups are a tad bit easier to restore that individual file backups.
If the drive is the internal drive of a laptop or desktop and you are technically savy, buy a replacement drive, reinstall the operating system, get a disk recovery utility for that OS, connect the drive as an external drive and see what the recovery utility can do. IMHO, if you're on a Mac, this is slightly easier than on a PC.
From henceforth, adopt a regular backup procedure. Multiple backups in multiple locations (to avoid the risk of a disaster at your primary location). I make image backups *every week* of my primary storage, and monthly of my backups. Image backups are a tad bit easier to restore that individual file backups.
Good luck
Steve