Icrontic have published an article on some data recovery techniques, titled 'Advanced Data Recovery'. While I'm not convinced that the title is wholely accurate, the article is still worth a read. It covers basic things such as booting the drive in another computer with a working OS, as well as working with a couple of data recovery applications.
Read more on the Front Page:
http://www.aoaforums.com/frontpage/content/view/2596/2/