Drive hasn't failed, silly bugger here pressed delete all thinking he'd downloaded the pics when he'd only looked at them!
Thanks all, I'll get to work on those suggestions.
Sadly both recuva and isobuster seem to be products of the unenlightened that only work on PCs, I'll have to dig up the dinosaur and see if I can revive it!
Last edited by Agaricus bisporus; 24th May 2013 at 14:24.