i can read the data partition, but not the os partition, so i'm probably safe just getting what i can off the data partition and putting it back away, again. there's unlikely to be much useful on the os partition, but i don't want to format it, just in case.

i think i'd have to find a way to ghost it and see if it works, but it probably won't. 

the chkdsk tells me there's insufficient space, but there should be sufficient space. regardless, i can't make extra space if i get a crc when launching it. what that error actually means is that it can't read the drive, either. short of cloning it, it's fucked - and i'm not seeing the value in doing that, right now.

this was the drive that i used on my main laptop years ago, before i switched to the hp laptop in early 2014. it's the drive i was fighting with in the first part of 2014, as documented in this space (and in the music journal). after switching to the hp laptop, i briefly toyed with trying to set this machine up as a guitar effect processor, but i never got around to it. and, then the hp died, and the backlight went out in the compaq, rendering it useless as a mobile device.

the os partition should have the os as it existed last time i installed to it, in 2014. it should just mostly be program files, but what's on the desktop? 

virtually anything worth saving should be on the data partition. i just wanted to make sure, first.

i have a large amount of these drives to sort through, and this is the kind of thing i'll be doing for the next couple of days.