Data recovery after sector went bad

[UncleS]

This happened a while ago but maybe someone here has an idea. About a year ago I picked up a second HD. I wanted to clear up some space on primary HD. After running scandisc to detect bad sectors and reformatting I zipped all the files and moved them. A couple of months later some sectors crashed. Now I can't open the zip files. I've have moved back what wasn't damaged. It doesn't have crucial data just jokes, pics, vids etc on it so I won't spend money for recovery service. Does anyone know of a way to at least open the zips to retrive undamaged files?

[GaryRouth]

Most data-recovery software has a little disclaimer upfront that it can't restore anything physically damaged...but quite a bit of data can be rescued after all, since the phsically damaged areas are often pretty small. A member, GreyFalcon, had a post from another thread about a PowerQuest program called Lost and Found that helped recover some information for member howie2424 on a troubled drive. I don't know much about the program, other than it worked for howie, who had overwritten the MBR on a drive-overlay Quantum.

Hey. . . guess what, just found it over at a PcWorld download site. The demo version is still available for download with the disclaimer that PowerQuest has discontinued the product (=no support other than the PQ Knowledge Base, which is actually pretty helpful) . . . Works in Dos. Here's the link:

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/fil...id,6769,00.asp

Good luck
. . . Gary