I lost a 120 Gb maxtor drive after 8 months of using it, Maxtor Ireland have spent 3 weeks recovering what files they can for me onto a new HDD. It doesnt matter what data is on there, they are just trying to save themselves from being sued for data loss due to a defective drive. Because Maxtor can't recover over 70% of my data they are sending a replacement drive AND a clean second drive for free- now thats kissing ass :P
My advice- unless it has some real degrading filth on there i would leave it as is and let them try to recover- you may get a second drive for free if they can't