In article , B00ze
wrote:

Got a 15 years old WD IDE hard drive, that was showing ZERO problems in
SMART data, suddenly can no longer calibrate (i.e. it can't read
anymore.) NOW the SMART data is showing something's wrong.

what specifically is smart showing? do you have more than a pass/fail?

Hard drive
"clicks" (heads go back and forth full disk) then quits trying. Have
another of the same model, but hesitant moving the platters myself;
apparently platters are not really "stuck" together and I could
mis-align them (rotate them in relation to each other) rendering the
whole thing un-readable.

swapping controllers (which is what i assume you mean by moving
platters) won't make a difference and risks making things worse.

Was planning to move the data off but kept
delaying since it showed no sign of problems...

all drives fail. the question is when. 15 years is *much* longer than
normal. consider yourself lucky it lasted that long. you were on
borrowed time. unfortunately, your luck ran out, and without a backup,
you're in the situation you're in.

Now need a data recovery company; anyone have good experience with one
and can recommend?

without question, drive savers:
https://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com

they aren't cheap (none of the good ones are), but if for some reason
they can't recover the drive (possible, but highly unlikely), you don't
pay anything.

a clicking drive is relatively easy compared to a computer melting in a
fire or being under water for a couple of days:
https://www.drivesaversdatarecovery....-bizarre-disk-
asters/

I'm also curious about how they recover drives if not by using another
of the same model (where they hell how they going to find one as old as
mine, and can they really keep one of each model of ALL drives?) If you
can enlighten me on that too, would be great.

they don't need one for each model drive and the controller isn't what
usually fails.