well, solved the issue myself. downloaded ZAR and started tring to image the disk. top line, all red bad sectors. aborted. after reading somewhere that if this happens, to try a card reader, i sat there holding this micro SD adapter wondering if it's almost like a tiny card reader. Found a different one, put in the micro SD, popped it into my laptop, and it asks if i want to import. All good to go.
??? I think I feel like an idiot, but I'm not sure yet.