[Wolves] Help - crashed hard disk. Phew!!

[Mark Ellse]

Thanks, all, for your company and support over this.

I did contact Vogon, whose recovery service costs £75 for initial 
inspection plus £500 to £800 for data recovery on the drive. I also, 
Dave, found ddrescue at the command line.

But the drive in the end responded to the fanheater trick, which I have 
used once before. Heated the drive up to hot, about 55 degrees C, and 
patiently retried using it as it cooled down. No doubt it felt it was 
being treated kindly, because it started giving fewer and fewer errors 
when chkdsk was being run until it became readable. I even managed to 
clone it and have a copy now working back in the machine.

Phew indeed!!!

Merry Christmas,

Mark