The tool (plus a number of others I tried) wouldn't do anything. Partition recovery would only attempt to recover a partition that was actually missing, not simply one that can't be read. It just said no partitions to recover and there were no applicable tools to use on the partition I needed rescued.

Some file recovery tools also proved useless. They would scan the disk and produce nothing but errors.

Trying Disk Repair (chkdsk) from Windows' own properties window on that drive hooked up externally did nothing. It would simply close the window when pressing OK and not pop up a progress bar or anything.

So I'm doing what 99% of Windows users already know how to do. Reformat and re-install. It's the normal Windows repair procedure, always has been and always will be unfortunately. By some time later in the week the installation will hopefully be completed. It has always taken at least 2 days for a complete Windows install in my experience (to get all drivers and a couple of primary apps set up). hopefully the SageTV install doesn't take another few days of headaches.