Anne Wilson wrote: > Ah well, from what I've seen I think specialist help would be able to recover > the data, but at great expense. I think the guy who has lost his data will > just have to do his work all over again. There's another one who has learned > the true value of regular backups <g> > > Anne > If you are not going to use a specialist, there is one thing you can try if you have another drive of the same type, or possible a larger drive. You can use dd with the conv=noerror option to copy the drive, and then use testdisk on the copy to recover things. The noerror option will let dd continue after the unreadable block. If you are fairly sure that the error is only on the first sector, you you use seek=1 and skip=1 to bypass coping the first block. (You have to use both, or the output will be offset 1 block.) Mikkel -- Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!