on second thought, data recovery is much more expensive than i thought it would be.

there are two further troubleshooting steps i can try at the beginning of april, when i can get the right tools, but i think they're both low probability. i've resigned myself to needing somebody to open the drive up. that could take years to save up for...

obviously, i can't leave myself in suspended animation for that long. so, i'm going to take the opportunity to upgrade as much software as i can.

in the end, i'll have to decide if it's worth it. am i happy with a vanilla vista or a vanilla xp? do i really need to recover a few dozen source files for the sake of having them? or is the iso i'm about to reconstruct "good enough"?

i could see the drive sitting in a box for the next ten years gathering dust.

i absolutely must try those fixes, though. and if they don't work, and i'm happy with the replacement, i might get experimental about it.