I'm having problems mounting the recovery image. I've tried to mount the image multiple ways. 
quark@DS9 ~ $ sudo mount -t ext4 /media/jump1/1recover/sdb1.img /mnt
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop0,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so
quark@DS9 ~ $ sudo mount -r -o loop /media/jump1/1recover/sdb1.img recover
mount: you must specify the filesystem type
quark@DS9 ~ $ sudo mount /media/jump1/1recover/sdb1.img mnt
mount: you must specify the filesystem type
It doesn't even give me detailed information on the file I just made, nautilus says it's 160gb. 
quark@DS9 ~ $ file /media/jump1/1recover/sdb1.img
/media/jump1/1recover/sdb1.img: data
quark@DS9 ~ $ mmls /media/jump1/1recover/sdb1.img
        Cannot determine partition type
I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong or if I started this process incorrectly from the beginning. I've outlined what I've done so far below. I'm clueless, I'd appreciate if someone had some input for me.
What I have done from the beginning
My laptop has two hard drives. 
One has the dual boot Win7 / Linux Mint system files. 
Secondary one contained my /home folder. 
The laptop was jarred and the /home disk was broken. 
I tried a LiveCD recovery, it failed. Wouldn't even load a Live session with the disk installed.
So I turned to ddrescue. 
quark@DS9 ~ $ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0009fc18
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048   112642047    56320000    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2       138033152   312580095    87273472   83  Linux
/dev/sda3       112644094   138033151    12694529    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       112644096   132173823     9764864   83  Linux
/dev/sda6       132175872   138033151     2928640   82  Linux swap / Solaris
Partition table entries are not in disk order
Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0002a8ea
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *          63   312576704   156288321   83  Linux
Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xed6d054b
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1              63  1953520064   976760001    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
sda - 160g internal, holds all system files and all computer
functions.
sdb - 160g internal, BROKEN, contains about 140g of data I'd like
to recover.
sdc - 1T external, contains recovery image. Only place that has space
to do all this.
From this site, https://apps.education.ucsb.edu/wiki/Ddrescue
I used this script to create an image of the broken hard drive. I changed the destination to the external USB drive. 
#!/bin/sh 
prt=sdb1
src=/dev/$prt
dst=/media/jump1/1recover/$prt.img
log=$dst.log
sudo time ddrescue --no-split $src $dst $log
sudo time ddrescue --direct --max-retries=3 $src $dst $log
sudo time ddrescue --direct --retrim --max-retries=3 $src $dst $log
Everything looked like it came off without a hitch:
quark@DS9 ~ $ sudo bash recover1 
Press Ctrl-C to interrupt
Initial status (read from logfile)
rescued:         0 B,  errsize:       0 B,  errors:       0
Current status
rescued:   160039 MB,  errsize:    4096 B,  current rate:    35588 B/s
   ipos:      3584 B,   errors:       1,    average rate:   22859 kB/s
   opos:      3584 B,     time from last successful read:       0 s
Finished                   
12.78user 1060.42system 1:56:41elapsed 15%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 4944maxresident)k
312580958inputs+0outputs (1major+601minor)pagefaults 0swaps
Press Ctrl-C to interrupt
Initial status (read from logfile)
rescued:   160039 MB,  errsize:    4096 B,  errors:       1
Current status
rescued:   160039 MB,  errsize:    1024 B,  current rate:        0 B/s
   ipos:      1536 B,   errors:       1,    average rate:       13 B/s
   opos:      1536 B,     time from last successful read:     1.3 m
Finished                       
0.00user 0.00system 3:43.95elapsed 0%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 4944maxresident)k
238inputs+0outputs (3major+374minor)pagefaults 0swaps
Press Ctrl-C to interrupt
Initial status (read from logfile)
rescued:   160039 MB,  errsize:    1024 B,  errors:       1
Current status
rescued:   160039 MB,  errsize:    1024 B,  current rate:        0 B/s
   ipos:      1536 B,   errors:       1,    average rate:        0 B/s
   opos:      1536 B,     time from last successful read:     3.7 m
Finished                       
0.00user 0.00system 3:43.56elapsed 0%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 4944maxresident)k
8inputs+0outputs (0major+376minor)pagefaults 0swaps
It looks like, from where I'm standing it worked perfectly. Here's the log:
# Rescue Logfile. Created by GNU ddrescue version 1.14
# Command line: ddrescue --direct --retrim --max-retries=3 /dev/sdb1 /media/jump1/1recover/sdb1.img /media/jump1/1recover/sdb1.img.log
# current_pos  current_status
0x00000600     +
#      pos        size  status
0x00000000  0x00000400  +
0x00000400  0x00000400  -
0x00000800  0x254314FC00  +
I'm not sure how to proceed. Does this mean all of my data is lost????????
Appreciate ANY input!