[Sam Kapasi]

I called Stellar. They have a 24hr helpline. Stellar asked me a few preliminary questions and determined that my drive is physically perfect.

Given the scenario that there is only a logical error (in this case by some freakish chance, the entire partition has disappeared, leaving no File allocation methos) it can only be done through a software recovery.

Stellar recommended I try the software on my HDD (in an external casing) and first see if there are recoverable files. I was warned that because there may be bad sectors, it may take especially long.

I ran Stellar Phoenix for 4 hours yesterday and was able to see some recoverable files. I promptly purchased it using my cc. (About 5400/-) and am currently recovering my crashed HDD in a casing.

At the current rate of progress I estimate between 30 to 40 hours, lol.