the only way?
are you kidding? … i have a 2.5" ide to usb and use it day in and day out at work…
i dropped my laptop from chin height (sitting on a rack of ciscos)… drive was shot… nothing worked and it just clicked… well a big timer showed me how shit works and i was able to recover my data using SOFTWARE… so it’s possible, even if the drive is phyiscally beat on… you just mark those sectors as untouchable then windows won’t fuck up trying to read them… i recovered 30+GB from my 100gb drive without any issues using an ide to usb.
also, you can disassemble the drive and replatter the disks… i, in fact, know a local consultant that has a vaccum room and platter spline in his house… so there are options… but as pointed out… that can be pricey, so you better know what you are looking for and what is important.
step 1. is to get an ide to usb and to get a version of partition pro and call it a day.
