HDD Failure - What to do?

["Hawes,Timothy Edward \(GEG\)" <haweste@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I recently 'inherited' an older PC. It will boot through the BIOS but
then it stops. I've taken the Maxtor HDD out and tried to read it via a
USB adaptor with another PC and although it makes encouraging noises, I
always get the following message: "E:\ is not accessible. The file or
directory is corrupted and unreadable."

I've put the drive in the freezer and then tried to read it but still
get the same error.

Is there anything else I can try? I don't think it's worth sending off
to data recovery co.

Thanks,

Tim.




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