Well, I ended up not really getting what I wanted. I swear computer salesmen are worse than used car salesmen.
But I'm copying many gigs across my network now and it appears that only some of my files are corrupt from the screwed up hard drive and nothing super-vital has come up corrupt. Yet. Knock on wood.
Should be able to get back to biz as usual by tomorrow.
Windows XP takes some getting used to.
Bookmarks