hard drive error in external enclosure

[tuscan hull]

Hi, I've had ongoing problems with an ibook G3. Hard drive can't be read - I've tried lots of things. (problem began when it crashed whilst downloading music and could never be started again) As the HD contains family photos of sentimental value I decided to remove it from the ibook, and access it from an external enclosure via my powerbook. I can begin running disk utility repairs but then an error reads:

Verify and Repair disk “disk3s5”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Invalid B-tree node size
Volume check failed.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error

I can't seem to run software restore either as the faulty external HD is not mounted.

Has anyone experienced similar problems before or suggest anything?
I'd be most grateful,

thankyou

 

[epooch]

Disk Warrior will fix invalid B tree nodes:
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

 

[zatrat]

I'd recomend Data Rescue II. That way you will be able to restore the information and later decide what to do with the drive.
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue_info.php

 

[tuscan hull]

epooch and zatrat,

cheers for the advice. will check out both. hopefully i can get my files back.

 

[tuscan hull]

help! I bought data rescue II yesterday and successfully recovered the CBR folder. Had to stop for the evening and resumed again this morning (I put the powerbook to sleep overnight) However data rescue when it does the initial scan for drives and peripherals doesn't find the external HD anymore. Utilties doesn't either.
can't continue recovery if i can't select drive.

 

[tuscan hull]

ps. i have tried all manner of restarts with USB's out, in, etc