On Tue, 10 Oct 2017 14:12:39 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Tue, 10 Oct 2017 13:44:35 -0400, Paul wrote:

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Mon, 09 Oct 2017 23:19:30 -0500, wrote:


So, I've come to the conclusion it's hopeless trying to recover from
this drive. However, I am going to still see if a professional data
recovery service can do it.



In case you're not aware of it, such a service is *very* expensive. Be
prepared to pay well over $1000

Wasn't there a piece of software - it either ran under DOS or included
the OS, I think it was bootable in itself - that would repeatedly read
until it got something (possibly taking days to do a disc)? I think it
cost about 50 pounds. (I vaguely remember the name Spinrite, but that
might be something else entirely.)

I don't know if it works at all with modern (even as old as is being
considered here) discs that have remapping firmware.

GRC Spinrite ?

How to beat a disk to death, in one easy lesson.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpinRite
snip

Every couple of posts in this thread, it might be worth reminding the OP
that ddrescue is really the best hope. If that can't be made to run
successfully for any number of reasons, then IMHO the amount of hope for
success is greatly reduced.

I would disconnect the problematic drive, multiple partitions and all,
until I get ddescue working, even if that means buying a $15 optical
drive if the PC can't boot from USB.

Why is it that in a Windows newsgroup, it seems the only solution to
anything is to use Linux? I begin to wonder if this is some sort of
conspiracy, inspired by linux users who hate Windows, to make Windows
look bad. I only know one thing, if I had to use linux, I would have
quit using computers about 25 years ago. Everytime I have ever touched
any sort of linux, I have become physically ill from stresss and
frustration. About 4 years ago, I really committed myself to learning
linux. I spent about 6 weeks of hell with it, and finally arrived at the
point I was either going to smash my computer with a sledge hammer, or
simply format the hard drive I was using to remove any and all traces of
linux from my life. I chose the later.

Buying a $15 optical drive wont do anything except waste $15 and
probably another $30 worth of blank CDs to fill my garbage can.
Particularly when I cant even find a copy of ddrescue online that is in
some sort of useful format. Meaning that every download of it is in some
useless format called ".Tar". Why cant they use something normal like
..zip

I refuse to go back to the frustration of even attempting linux. I hate
it, and I'll repeat that. "I HATE LINUX". There is no reason that I
should come to a Windows newsgroup and be told that linux is my only
hope. If the only way to salvage this drive, is to use linux, I'll
rather do what a guy did on a youtube video called "Shoot your computer,
episode 1". (Worth watching).

I'm retitred and on a small fixed income. My electronics hobby/business
is my only outside source of income. Losing this data has put an end to
that business. I guess I should have printed all this to paper, since
it's apparent that computers are not reliable. Live and learn. Life is
full of hard lessons, and I guess I learned the hard way.