If the circuit board is 'cracked' he may be able to 'flex' it enough to copy the info from it.
I wouldn’t put it in a microwave. You can probably recover the data but it may be costly. A typical hard drive recovery can run $3000 if the drive is intact.
The one thing to be careful of is not to cause any more damage. Much of the software out there is to recover deleted files and wont address damaged media such as it sounds like you have.