Firstly, thanks to everyone who's given me advice. I take it, Volker, that the SuSE version of dd_rescue is on that SuSE 9.3 DVD I got from you a year ago? FWIW, the GNU one's on the Software Freedom Knoppix. smartmontools isn't. ;) I've also thought about the cables. At the moment I haven't done anything about it.
I've taken the disk offline for the meantime. And thanks, John Carter, for that little titbit - it made me laugh! Wesley Parish P.S. It's a rather inauspicious way to announce a project, but I may as well. I've started a project I've called "Office Miniatures" - an attempt to emulate the Toplevel CompleteWorks office suite of 1993, which could be distributed in half a 1.44MB floppy. It's GPL, of course, since a good number of its components are GPLed - gnusql's the database, and that is not only GPLed, it's also an FSF project; LlamaXML for the ODF implementation is GPLed; I think I'll use Mercurial for the scm/distributed functionality, and dillo for the web browser - while a number of others are Public Domain - mge, a Public Domain micro-emacs clone with most of the features I want, ditto for sc. Thankfully I backed all that up on cdrom before the disk began failing. And no, I'm not an XML guru, let alone a K&R one, but when I've done enough to post the project on SourceForge and/or Savannah, I may know a little more than I previously did. ;) And could everyone keep me honest? Ie, give me a good kick up the backside every month or so, just so I don't forget I'm supposed to be doing it? "Sharpened hands are happy hands. "Brim the tinfall with mirthful bands" - A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge "I me. Shape middled me. I would come out into hot!" I from the spicy that day was overcasked mockingly - it's a symbol of the other horizon. - emacs : meta x dissociated-press
