'Disk Read Error' - worth a format?

[ergonomics]

Got a few years old 36GB Raptor in my machine, just went dead. Everything started freezing then when i rebooted, disk read error.

Is it worth formatting and trying a fresh install? Or will it most likely just crap out on me again? Got no experience with hard drives and i'm wondering whether to clean out an old SATA drive i have or try and format this raptor again.

Cheers.

 

[ergonomics]

Well it looks like the hard drive is borked. I've tried it as a slave and get 'E:/ is not accessible. It is corrupt or unreadable.'

Any programs that you guys recommend to get some data back? I have some things on there i'd rather not lose.

Cheers