Dr. Jones - your case was a happy one - in my case, unfortunately, nothing could be done, tho I went to a professional data recovery specialist...
And yes, I agree, DVDs and CDs can be just as faulty: having the magnetic foil come off your newly written CD out of the blue just after you've deleted the backed up data (from need of space on hard drive...) can be just as frustrating as having someone knock over your external hard disk and getting the "click-click sound of death"... the data is all there, yet nothing can be done to access it. Maddening...


