damn dude i have never heard of that shit goin down. Data recovery is a bitch i used to do it ages ago if i can find my books on what i used to do it i can try to help. for the most part thought something fugly went down in the software cuz that shit shouldnt happen from just uploading a cable. Virus maybe? I think you can still run scandisk or something like that without an OS but I cant rememebr how cuz its been ages since i had to. It just sounds like you may need to reinstall windows and bite the bullet i dunno wait on vista its mad slow just stick with xp pro til u upgrade, less hardware issues anyway..