Originally Posted by Done_Fishin

When you get your new drive set it up as master, removing the old drive until you have installed windows, antivirus and a decent firewall.
then download a file recovery program which, after you connect your old drive (configured as slave) to the slave position, you can scour for recoverable files and save those files in a diectory on your new drive.
one tip I used to see frequently but never had recourse to use, wasc top place the faulty drive in the freezer overnight. It sometimes allows just sufficient time to copy over the files before failing again. Don't do it til you have that new drive up & running though.