Oh man, that's a pain in the ass. Since I (also) know how it feels, I started to make backups long ago with rsync on Windows (some japanese edition, so it supports Multichar bytes or however they are called), of my 2 main drives. Already saved my ass once.

May we guess the manufacturer? I bet it's Seagate.

This is also why "sharing is caring" (open source), it prevents code loss, especially for oneself.