Fried External Hard Drive

In a fit of inspiration, I bought an external hard drive in January, thinking that my pictures would be a lot safer on something not connected to the internet 24/7 and therefore less likely to catch a virus. However, three months later, and my external hard drive fries... with all of my pictures on it. Luckily, I just finished printing the last batch of them, but those are my digital copies in case I want to make more copies. So now I have to hope that the Geek Squad or someone can get the pictures back for me without having to spend a small fortune.