i finally got round to slaving it to a larger drive.., a 80gb drive. in windows explorer it told me 'access denied'. just out of curiousity i went to 'properties' it showed the disc was read-only. i changed the settings to allow all to read, or write to and from it. After this i could see the folders and files on the disc. A scan of the disc showed a damaged and inaccessible area about 5% of the disc. otherwise most of the contents are intact except the WINNT folder. i never got to use the array of recovery tools i had been given and collected. am breathing a little easier now.
now about the electrical traumas discs experience, how do i prepare for em apart from backups? are there other precautions?