Many years ago I bumped an operating external hard disk drive and ruined it. No files, I can't now recall the windows message, probably "Do you want to format the disk?".
Using free tools, I determined that there was damage right at the start of the disk (master file table?) and that I had no hope of manual recovery. I bought data recovery software CnW Recovery,
Data recovery service PCs, Macs, photos, videos. It was as I recall £14 for a 1 month license.
Scanned the disk, recovered as far as I could tell, everything. Of course it took a few hours. I was very happy:-)
I think there was a free download that did the scan and gave you a report of what files would be recovered. You had to buy it to get files back.
At the time they offered for a very few hundred pounds a further service if you sent them the disk. I was considering that I might use it if the software did not work. They do not seem to offer that now but still do the software.
There are also now some free options - a quick search reveals -
https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva. There will likely be others.
One thing is that if you can, the first thing to do is make an image of the disk and then scan that. I can't recall if CnW offered that option.
Good luck.