Different experience. Had a 640GB USB drive that one day refused to mount. Every time I connected it to the Mac I would get the "this disc needs to be initialised" message. Disc Utility could see the drive but not the partition. Same with Disk Drill, it could see the drive but not the partition. Ended up trying (and buying) Data Rescue 3. It saw the drive and the partition and after a lengthy 30hr scan and recover process managed to retrieve all 300GB from the drive intact. Not saying Disk Drill is not as effective as Data Rescue, it's a matter of finding the right tool for the task.
No problems ripping but where are the settings for the .m4v conversion? Just tried it and it produced a 1024x576 movie @ 1509 kbits/sec. Way too low. Movie looks kind of blocky. Need to pump up the kbits/sec.
-3
Carbon Copy Cloner
+106
Not Apple but developed by an ex-Apple team.
Fumy
AirServer
Data Rescue
Revco reviewed on 13 Dec 2011
+3
Disk Drill
+2
Hear
Switché
+1
ForeverSave
+1
Mac DVDRipper Pro
+106
+3
Google Chrome