[SOLVED] Salvaging 750 GB Hitachi HD using Minitool Power Data Recovery

[friendlyspider]

Problem: I had a failed, inaccessible hard drive.
After trying everything, including the options I'm familiar with, I tried Minitool Power Data Recovery, which I was infamiliar with. Though far easier to use and promising the moon, it seems to have restored only some of what it said it did, after hours and hours of prep time.

To get it working, make sure you're not installing it with any language that uses unusual symbols for / dashes, that seems to mess up installation.

Not that it matters in the end, you won't be getting your stuff back. Nothing ever works out.

 

[friendlyspider]

Wow, I'm dumb, but I fixed it. Let me know if it's bad form to 'answer' your own questions, but elsewise I'll edit the main topic so that the top includes A): My problem/specs B): The solution and C): how to duplicate said solution on other rigs.

For now: Hard Drive failure/unsalvagable partition was causing me grief, got MiniTool PDR after having never heard of it; was incredibly skeptical. It didn't work, but then I tried re-installing with English text support; for whatever reason, that did it!
Test file recovered beautifully, I'll drop cash on it and (hopefully) use it to salvage the bulk of my hard drive and perhaps even the file directory!

I'll edit the topic itself to make it more useful for other people looking for a solution the next time I'm on.