It's ten years old, 80 GB (only about a quarter used); went south months ago with no critical files thereupon. Fired it up today; appears on the desktop after about five minutes, with the directory rebuild taking another five. For about the next ten minutes I can copy files before the thing gets the vapors again. I've been able to retrieve the more important contents (again, nothing I couldn't live without, but certain data that will be convenient) so far today. I might add that in my recent experience most of the Mac disc recovery applications appear to have done more harm than good.

cordially,