Quote Originally Posted by M250cnc View Post
Check the drive on another pc and do the recovery from there.

Phil
That's my plan ... only problem is ... it's a SATA drive and my other pc is IDE and for some reason we cannot get the SATA pc to boot from the IDE drive even when SATA is removed and bios is changed to recognise IDE as 'C'. However there is still hope ... My Son is a linux fan and his pc is SATA ... we are going to load his machine with XP and stick my 'dead' drive in as a slave. As an aside my usb stick is not just clean, as I first reported but completely dead and I mean as dead as the proverbial parrot. No little flashing led when put into any pc or laptop and not recognised as any form of anything, nothing can see it at all!!

But thanks to all for suggestions and advice ... watch this space!!