J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message ,
writes:

I may take the drive to a local computer repair shop and see if they
have some software to fix it, or should I get brave and let Norton disk
doctor do it's thing??? This sure is a gamble!!!!

Indeed. What _are_ these - mostly schematics in .pdf form, from what
you've said - that are so valuable/irreplaceable? (And why are they
almost impossible to replace: where have you been getting them from?)

In-place repair always has an element of danger.

Whether it's scandisk or CHKDSK, or whatever.

You should always make a copy of valuable materials
and work on the copy, *not* the known-damaged item.

I prefer a sector-by-sector copy, one where a log is
produced showing what sectors did not get copied. The
flavor of operation done, may be affected by the available
space you've got to work with. The first priority is
making the copy, just in case the disk is about to
mechanically fail on you.

Similarly, deleting files from the source, using "move"
of files from the source (causing deletion) is not
advised. The file system may attempt to modify some
part of the damaged FAT, on top of that bad sector.
You can do anything you want to the source disk
as long as:

1) The operation has no side effects on the source partition.

2) The commands you're executing when reading the disk,
don't throw the heads around too vigorously. That's
where the sector-by-sector copy comes in, as it smoothly
moves over the disk surface while working.

Paul