Spinrite turns off the automatic error checking built into the drive. I have had it recover sector 0 enough to allow the data to be backed up. This tool first came out when MFM RLL drives needed to be interleaved properly for performance and has not gone away. Just this year it was upgraded. I just wanted to let you know about it as it is relevant to the discussion. http://www.grc.com
Ciao, Dave
