Laptop HD repair/recovery question

[Michael ODonnell]

This has been discussed here in the past so good info can
probably be found in the archives (RTFA!  ;-> ) and IIRC
the recommendations usually come down to:

 - Connect the drive to a different system, either directly
   or using a USB converter, to determine if the problems lie
   with the drive or with something else.

 - Proabably shouldn't mount the filesystem in RW mode or do
   anything else to it that will result in modifications to
   it until you've made a bit-for-bit copy of the disk using
   something like (say) dd or dd_rescue.

 - While the pain is fresh, briefly consider implementing a
   backup regimen, then discard the notion and resume previous
   behavior...