Old lenses are still lenses and the deciding factor is whether or not they were good ones to begin with. I am currently learning to use an old (from the 60's) Takumar 135mm lens effectively on my Pentax K-70 and for $45 it is an outstanding lens with some caveats since it has none of the modern coatings to prevent glare and CA.

I'm going to chime in here and suggest that before you pay anyone to recover your data, do this: if you have the temerity to open your PC, or use a spare PC, attach your "failed" drive to the cables that connect your DVD/CD drive to that drive and boot the computer up. Then, with Windows up and running, see if the drive shows up. If so, it has not failed. If you cannot access it, but it shows up, right click on the failed drive and select Properties. Then select Check now... from the Tools tab.
Be sure and tick both options, Automatically fix file system errors AND Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors. You may have to reboot in order for the disk check to run.

Now, if you cannot see the drive in Windows File Explorer, there's a good chance the drive is dead and you'll need a specialist to try and recover data from the internal platter. It's really up to you whether that is worth the expense. I personally suggest you use a cloud based backup for your photos. Google will give you 100GB of storage for $2 a month.

Since this only applies to one lens, I'm guessing a fingerprint on the mount end of the lens glass or you have moisture in that lens.