Active@ Partition Recovery

I downloaded the demo version of Active@ Partition Recovery and it could actually see the partitions that were on there.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1017
Of course being only a demo you can't recover anything. Has anyone else tried it??
My friend's 80GB WD (8MB cache) HD is almost FUBAR. BIOS can see it, but it comes up as unpartitioned space using XP's install CD or a 9x boot disk. WD's data lifeguard tools weren't much help, quick test just basically said the HD is FUBAR. Extended test wouldn't run. He had Win ME, FAT 32 (obviously).