Clint Sharp wrote:

Eeyore writes

I've never previously 'lost' or needed to 're-install' an installation of
Windows you see. Short of total mechanical/electrical failure I'd like to
maintain that record.
Get a copy of Spinrite. It works for errors like the one you have. There
are other tools which are for filesystem corruption and lost
files/partitions but it sounds like you have something a little 'lower
level' than that.

Ah yes. I've seen that at grc.com.

I didn't know it did stuff like that. Thanks.

Graham