Data Recovery Software – Zero Assumption Recovery
The next one I tried. This one took a little more effort to get through its scan. By default, it didn’t seem to skip forward after running into repeated read errors and I don’t think I could cancel the operation (I think I had to kill it with task manager). It also took significantly longer than GetDataBack to complete its scan (multiple hours vs 1).

Once done, the file selection UI was unweildy. There is an option to display individual files (essential, because sometimes directory names are lost/meaningless) but it only seemed to disply the files if the directory also included another directory.

I decided to keep looking, especially since this one is $99.

GetDataBack – Data Recovery Software for all Windows File Systems
I ran this one, and it seemed to do a pretty good job, near as I can tell. I had to tell it to skip all errors, and I had to put the drive on a separate IDE channel because it seemed to lock up when it hit bad sectors.

It let me open individual files, and most of the ones I want seem available and in good shape. To do bulk recovery, you have to pay, and this one is ~$129 because they seem to think NTFS users are flush and can afford to pay more. For that reason, I am looking for alternatives.

My main hard disk died a few weeks back, and my backups were bad. So, I am trying out hard drive recovery software.

Bush has pretty much guaranteed that whatever happens in Iraq, he (and unfortunately, we) can’t win.

1. We wait for the UN inspections, and end up going to war with the support of the UN. Perhaps the best possible outcome, but the excesses of Bush’s posturing make us look like chumps.
2. We wait for the UN inspections, and, miracle of miracles, some good actually comes of it. Iraq disarms, Saddam steps down and everyone lives happily ever after. Yeah, right, like that is going to happen. Even if it does, we look like assholes, we also look weak for beating our chests so much before doing nothing.
3. We don’t wait, and instead go in and win a victory without a protracted war. Could happen, but it isn’t going to end well. Bush will have cheezed off most of the rest of the world and so we’ll have to fight entropy in Iraq at great expense to ourselves at a time when we don’t really have much headroom in the economy.
4. We don’t wait for the UN, go in, win victory, and everyone in Iraq lives happily ever after, so the rest of the world grudgingly accepts that Bush was right. Not bloody likely. Instead, Iraq will melt down, the middle-east will be an even bigger mess than it is now, and Bush and his cronies will be out of office dining on their ill gotten gains, leaving someone else to try and restablish our credibility in the world.

Bully Bush – The president is botching the Iraq crisis with his clumsy, naive unilateralism. By Fred Kaplan

It is becoming increasingly and distressingly clear that, however justified the coming war with Iraq may be, the Bush administration is in no shape—diplomatically, politically, or intellectually—to wage it or at least to settle its aftermath.

Don’t let the boomers pay their debts with your kid’s future paychecks.