A shot in the dark

[David Lloyd]

Adam et al,

>> I fear this is a case of... close the barn door because the horses are
>> out... but I promised them I would try.
> 
> That says to me the disk is crapped out.  You are going to need the
> services of a professional, or just software that knows how to skip
> that bad sector.

Indeed - how much is this data actually worth (not necessarily in 
dollars)? When you can answer that, you'll be able to work out how much 
effort or consideration [eg. money, time etc] to put into recovering it.

Of course, depending on exactly what is actually wrong, the more things 
you do to recover it, the more damage you may cause.

DSL

(ps: these days, you may perform vicarious chook sacrifices by thinking
      of any of the industrial slaughter houses and adopting one of the
      chooks who may end up at KFC)