Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.

It totally 'locked up' the PC with no error message. Never seen anything quite
like that before so it took me a little while to pinpoint it. The BIOS found the
drive OK btw.

Anyway, I got things sorted and then re-attached it as a secondary drive.

Trying to look at it, Windows Explorer 'froze' for a bit but it did load a drive
icon eventually. However Windows Explorer was of no further help.

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic redundancy
error'.

Any ideas what's up ? Is the drive destined for silicon hell or is it
recoverable ? I'm wondering if the system area's data's been trashed for
example.

Graham

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:02:02 +0100, in sci.electronics.design Eeyore
wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.

It totally 'locked up' the PC with no error message. Never seen anything quite
like that before so it took me a little while to pinpoint it. The BIOS found the
drive OK btw.

Anyway, I got things sorted and then re-attached it as a secondary drive.

Trying to look at it, Windows Explorer 'froze' for a bit but it did load a drive
icon eventually. However Windows Explorer was of no further help.

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic redundancy
error'.

Any ideas what's up ? Is the drive destined for silicon hell or is it
recoverable ? I'm wondering if the system area's data's been trashed for
example.

Graham


try a linux cd-live boot disk, may be of some help.Some linux things
state they can recover windoze stuff
FWIW I tried the latest Ubuntu CD live yesterday, thought it was not
very good, possibly a bit joe public!

Knoppix may be better ,more nerdy, (Warning 1980's graphics)



martin

martin griffith wrote:

try a linux cd-live boot disk

I did that a while back.

Neither Ubuntu or Xubuntu would work. I'm very unimpressed.

Graham

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:35:51 +0100, Eeyore
wrote:



martin griffith wrote:

try a linux cd-live boot disk

I did that a while back.

Neither Ubuntu or Xubuntu would work. I'm very unimpressed.

Graham


Those are live/install CDs.

Try KNOPPIX 5.1.1

It was the first, and is the best live bootable, useable as a recovery
tool CD (from a certain POV).

Spurious Response wrote:

Eeyorewrote:
martin griffith wrote:

try a linux cd-live boot disk

I did that a while back.

Neither Ubuntu or Xubuntu would work. I'm very unimpressed.

Those are live/install CDs.

Yes. And that is a good or bad thing in exactly what way ?


Try KNOPPIX 5.1.1

It was the first, and is the best live bootable, useable as a recovery
tool CD (from a certain POV).

Ok. I'll take a peek at that.

Graham

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:28:08 +0100, Eeyore
wrote:

Those are live/install CDs.

Yes. And that is a good or bad thing in exactly what way ?

Keyed more toward installing. Knoppix is keyed heavily toward good auto
detect routines for hardware, and a great driver compliment. So it
nearly always gets you into the gui, and if the drive lives, you'll see
it. Burn a disc or two of it's contents and make a doorstop out of it.

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 01:27:10 +0200, martin griffith
wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:02:02 +0100, in sci.electronics.design Eeyore
wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.

It totally 'locked up' the PC with no error message. Never seen anything quite
like that before so it took me a little while to pinpoint it. The BIOS found the
drive OK btw.

Anyway, I got things sorted and then re-attached it as a secondary drive.

Trying to look at it, Windows Explorer 'froze' for a bit but it did load a drive
icon eventually. However Windows Explorer was of no further help.

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic redundancy
error'.

Any ideas what's up ? Is the drive destined for silicon hell or is it
recoverable ? I'm wondering if the system area's data's been trashed for
example.

Graham


try a linux cd-live boot disk, may be of some help.Some linux things
state they can recover windoze stuff
FWIW I tried the latest Ubuntu CD live yesterday, thought it was not
very good, possibly a bit joe public!

Knoppix may be better ,more nerdy, (Warning 1980's graphics)



martin


Jeez! 300GB UDMA drives are $59 now for the high end.

Why would ANYONE still be pounding around on a sub 100GB drive?!

OLD...

SLOW...

AND DAMN LIKELY TO FAIL SOON!

Spurious Response wrote:

Jeez! 300GB UDMA drives are $59 now for the high end.#

Made by whom ?

Graham

"Eeyore" wrote in message
...


Spurious Response wrote:

Jeez! 300GB UDMA drives are $59 now for the high end.#

Made by whom ?

Graham


Well you can get a Seagate 300 GB for $89.90 shipped from a couple places
listed on pricewatch, but that's not really relevant here anyway since the
data is the item of discussion, not the failed drive it currently resides
on.

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:24:40 +0100, Eeyore
wrote:



Spurious Response wrote:

Jeez! 300GB UDMA drives are $59 now for the high end.#

Made by whom ?


Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor...

Spurious Response wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Spurious Response wrote:

Jeez! 300GB UDMA drives are $59 now for the high end.#

Made by whom ?

Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor...

All of which are brands history has noted for premature failure.

There's only one brand of HDD I learned to trust and that was Quantum.

Graham

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.


They aren't called "Deathstars" just to be cute.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.

They aren't called "Deathstars" just to be cute.

Nah. It's well beyond that period.

Graham

Eeyore wrote:

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.

They aren't called "Deathstars" just to be cute.

Nah. It's well beyond that period.


So, its 'bloody' junk?


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.



They aren't called "Deathstars" just to be cute.


Heck, they aren't even called "IBM" any more.

--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form .

CJT wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.



They aren't called "Deathstars" just to be cute.


Heck, they aren't even called "IBM" any more.


Well, even IBM had SOME standards. They ran their hard drive
division into the toilet, then liquidated what was left, to another
company.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 06:04:13 GMT, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:

CJT wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.



They aren't called "Deathstars" just to be cute.


Heck, they aren't even called "IBM" any more.


Well, even IBM had SOME standards. They ran their hard drive
division into the toilet,

Bull****. Maybe from a sales POV. IBM is (was) at the pinnacle of HD
storage technology. They were the leaders which WD and Seagate followed.
IBM was the leader in MR Head technology, and had the record for lineal
density on horizontal method MR technology. They also have their own
perpendicular recording mode work that was top notch. Do you really
think Hitachi would have wanted to buy a dog?

then liquidated what was left, to another
company.

Nice try. Do you even know how much they got for it?

Spurious Response wrote:
wrote:
Well, even IBM had SOME standards. They ran their hard drive
division into the toilet,

Bull****. Maybe from a sales POV. IBM is (was) at the pinnacle of HD
storage technology. They were the leaders which WD and Seagate followed.

Points to them for inventing Winchester technology. That said, their
so-called fix for the Deathstar drives didn't work. I got hold of one
early, lightly used and long before its first click of death. I applied
the fix and sent it home. The friend brought it back inside of a year,
clicking away, and though we managed to salvage a little data, most of it
went the way of the Deathstar.

--
"Justice Thomas pointed out that the Constitution does not waive the rights
of the individual because an elite has decided its motives are pure."
-- Paul Greenberg

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:35:44 -0500, CJT wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.



They aren't called "Deathstars" just to be cute.


Heck, they aren't even called "IBM" any more.


All IBM drives are STILL called IBM drives.

ALL NEW drives made in said IBM facilities are now called Hitachi
drives, since Hitachi bought IBM's HD manufacturing arm and related
technologies.

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:02:02 +0100, Eeyore
put finger to keyboard and
composed:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.

It totally 'locked up' the PC with no error message. Never seen anything quite
like that before so it took me a little while to pinpoint it. The BIOS found the
drive OK btw.

Anyway, I got things sorted and then re-attached it as a secondary drive.

Trying to look at it, Windows Explorer 'froze' for a bit but it did load a drive
icon eventually. However Windows Explorer was of no further help.

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic redundancy
error'.

I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.

As for the CRC error, I don't understand why invoking a file on the
[good?] master drive would be a problem, unless the slave was hanging
up the IDE channel. To eliminate this possibility, I'd move the
Deskstar to the secondary IDE channel, on its own, configured as
master.

Any ideas what's up ? Is the drive destined for silicon hell or is it
recoverable ? I'm wondering if the system area's data's been trashed for
example.

Graham

AIUI, when a 512 byte sector is written to a HD, the HD's controller
calculates a CRC for that sector and writes it to the HD. When the
data is retrieved from the HD, the controller recomputes a new CRC and
checks to see that it matches the one that was recorded with the
original data.

I'd use the manufacturer's diagnostic utility to do a sector by sector
scan of the HD.

IBM/Hitachi Drive Fitness Test:
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Or you could try Scandisk with a thorough surface scan.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

In message , Franc Zabkar
writes
I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.
Umm, actually, XP has command.com as well.

--
Clint Sharp

"Clint Sharp" wrote in message
...
In message , Franc Zabkar
writes
I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.
Umm, actually, XP has command.com as well.

--
Clint Sharp

Oddly cmd.exe and command.com behave slightly differently under xp, but they
both do the same thing.

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:49:05 -0400, "Michael Kennedy"
put finger to keyboard and composed:


"Clint Sharp" wrote in message
...
In message , Franc Zabkar
writes
I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.
Umm, actually, XP has command.com as well.

--
Clint Sharp

Oddly cmd.exe and command.com behave slightly differently under xp, but they
both do the same thing.

All the references I can find say that one should use cmd.exe wherever
possible and that command.com should be used only for DOS apps that
have trouble running under XP. One major difference appears to be that
the latter doesn't support long file names. Another is that XP batch
language is much more powerful than that afforded by command.com. In
any case, cmd.exe is XP's native CLI, and command.com is for Win9x and
DOS.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

"Franc Zabkar" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:49:05 -0400, "Michael Kennedy"
put finger to keyboard and composed:


"Clint Sharp" wrote in message
...
In message , Franc Zabkar
writes
I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.
Umm, actually, XP has command.com as well.

--
Clint Sharp

Oddly cmd.exe and command.com behave slightly differently under xp, but
they
both do the same thing.

All the references I can find say that one should use cmd.exe wherever
possible and that command.com should be used only for DOS apps that
have trouble running under XP. One major difference appears to be that
the latter doesn't support long file names. Another is that XP batch
language is much more powerful than that afforded by command.com. In
any case, cmd.exe is XP's native CLI, and command.com is for Win9x and
DOS.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.



I assumed that command.com was included for legacy support as you have
confirmed.

Franc Zabkar wrote:

"Michael Kennedy" put finger to keyboard and composed:
"Clint Sharp" wrote
Franc Zabkar writes:

I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.
Umm, actually, XP has command.com as well.

Oddly cmd.exe and command.com behave slightly differently under xp, but they
both do the same thing.

All the references I can find say that one should use cmd.exe wherever
possible and that command.com should be used only for DOS apps that
have trouble running under XP. One major difference appears to be that
the latter doesn't support long file names. Another is that XP batch
language is much more powerful than that afforded by command.com. In
any case, cmd.exe is XP's native CLI, and command.com is for Win9x and
DOS.

Maybe so but I've always used command.com and it works just fine.

Graham

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:49:05 -0400, "Michael Kennedy"
wrote:


"Clint Sharp" wrote in message
...
In message , Franc Zabkar
writes
I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.
Umm, actually, XP has command.com as well.

--
Clint Sharp

Oddly cmd.exe and command.com behave slightly differently under xp, but they
both do the same thing.

There's a commands.exe (in c:\HP\BIN) on this Vista spit machine
that seems to be similar similar (if not identical) to cmd.exe.

Note that cmd.exe (and my commands.exe) allow you to use the up-arrow
key (or F3) to copy the previous command (as well as other things) so
it's a lot more pleasant to use than the stripped command.com.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 09:56:00 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
put finger to keyboard and
composed:

Note that cmd.exe (and my commands.exe) allow you to use the up-arrow
key (or F3) to copy the previous command (as well as other things) so
it's a lot more pleasant to use than the stripped command.com.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

In Win9x you can enable command line history by typing "doskey".

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 09:56:00 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
wrote:

so
it's a lot more pleasant to use than the stripped command.com.


Command.com is NOT "stripped". It has never had a history function
without running a TSR to manage it. That would have been (not anymore)
DOSKey.

Spehro Pefhany wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:49:05 -0400, "Michael Kennedy"
wrote:


"Clint Sharp" wrote in message
...
In message , Franc Zabkar
writes
I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.
Umm, actually, XP has command.com as well.

--
Clint Sharp

Oddly cmd.exe and command.com behave slightly differently under xp, but
they both do the same thing.

There's a commands.exe (in c:\HP\BIN) on this Vista spit machine
that seems to be similar similar (if not identical) to cmd.exe.

Note that cmd.exe (and my commands.exe) allow you to use the up-arrow
key (or F3) to copy the previous command (as well as other things) so
it's a lot more pleasant to use than the stripped command.com.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
One more thing that they belatedly cloned from DRDos / NovellDOS.
--
JosephKK
Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.Â*Â*
--Schiller

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 08:28:48 +0100, Clint Sharp
wrote:

In message , Franc Zabkar
writes
I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.
Umm, actually, XP has command.com as well.


Uh... command.com is the old DOS command interpreter.

cmd.exe is the NT "DOS Virtual Machine" shell.

Different command interpreters can be invoked from within this shell,
including command.com

Franc Zabkar wrote:

Eeyore put finger to keyboard and composed:

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic redundancy
error'.

I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.

What's this then ?

Type of file: MS-DOS Application
Description: command
Location: C:\WINDOWS\system32
Size: 49.4 KB (50,620 bytes)


Graham

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 12:23:02 +0100, Eeyore
put finger to keyboard and
composed:



Franc Zabkar wrote:

Eeyore put finger to keyboard and composed:

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic redundancy
error'.

I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.

What's this then ?

Type of file: MS-DOS Application
Description: command
Location: C:\WINDOWS\system32
Size: 49.4 KB (50,620 bytes)


Graham

As I said, I'm basically ignorant of XP, and what little I know about
it I learnt from watching alt.msdos.batch, and by working
[reluctantly] on friends' machines.

In any case other XP users have suggested that you would be better off
using cmd.exe. In fact, if I were to include just one feature of XP in
Win98SE, it would be XP's extensions to batch language.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

Franc Zabkar wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 12:23:02 +0100, Eeyore
put finger to keyboard and
composed:



Franc Zabkar wrote:

Eeyore put finger to keyboard and composed:

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic
redundancy error'.

I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.

What's this then ?

Type of file: MS-DOS Application
Description: command
Location: C:\WINDOWS\system32
Size: 49.4 KB (50,620 bytes)


Graham

As I said, I'm basically ignorant of XP, and what little I know about
it I learnt from watching alt.msdos.batch, and by working
[reluctantly] on friends' machines.

In any case other XP users have suggested that you would be better off
using cmd.exe. In fact, if I were to include just one feature of XP in
Win98SE, it would be XP's extensions to batch language.

- Franc Zabkar
You can get that. Do some re-search.
--
JosephKK
Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.Â*Â*
--Schiller

On Sat, 21 Jul 2007 04:28:49 GMT, joseph2k
put finger to keyboard and composed:

In any case other XP users have suggested that you would be better off
using cmd.exe. In fact, if I were to include just one feature of XP in
Win98SE, it would be XP's extensions to batch language.

- Franc Zabkar

You can get that. Do some re-search.

If you mean 4DOS, then I've been aware of this command.com replacement
long before it became freeware. In any case I didn't say I was looking
for this extra functionality, I just said that it would be one of the
few features of XP that I would add to W98.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:02:02 +0100, Eeyore
wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.

It totally 'locked up' the PC with no error message. Never seen anything quite
like that before so it took me a little while to pinpoint it. The BIOS found the
drive OK btw.

Anyway, I got things sorted and then re-attached it as a secondary drive.

Trying to look at it, Windows Explorer 'froze' for a bit but it did load a drive
icon eventually. However Windows Explorer was of no further help.

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic redundancy
error'.

Any ideas what's up ? Is the drive destined for silicon hell or is it
recoverable ? I'm wondering if the system area's data's been trashed for
example.

Graham




go to grc.com and buy SpinRite - well worth the money ($19 ish???). It
has various different recover methods and will sample damaged sectors
hundreds of times (if necessary) and use statistical analysis to
rebuild damaged blocks. It can take days on a deep dive, but if the
data is that valuable...

You should still replace the drive once it is recovered so clone the
disk onto a new one but this has saved my arse and that of lots of my
customers many times. People know they should backup stuff but most
don't. Spinrite has only been 100% effective on two occasions but
that was down to drives with cascading failures - prolly cause the
flying height of the head was compromised - dust or sunnik got loose I
reckon. It can handle your CRC error by sampling the sector many times
and rebuilding the checksum. Might take a day or more so be prepared.
It did with a 120G IBM deskstar that I recovered a while back.

Take the drive out of the current machine and put it in a known good
machine - just in case hardware faults associated with the motherboard
in the original machine are ensuring data is written badly - I have a
micro ITX board that does this - I keep it for what I don't know -
maybe I'll put a SATA card in the single PCI slot )

Spinrite comes as an ISO image that you burn to a cd and then boot. As
it is looking at the structure of the data as written to the disk, it
doesn't care what format it's in (on the deepest dive that it).

HTH

F

go to grc.com and buy SpinRite - well worth the money

Strongly seconded.

"Kevin G. Rhoads" wrote:

go to grc.com and buy SpinRite - well worth the money

Strongly seconded.

It's hardly worth $89 to resuscitate an old 20GB drive.

Graham

Eeyore wrote in
:



"Kevin G. Rhoads" wrote:

go to grc.com and buy SpinRite - well worth the money

Strongly seconded.

It's hardly worth $89 to resuscitate an old 20GB drive.

Depends on the data on it.

I am considering getting SpinRite. If it is half as good as they say, it
should be worth it!

Yesterday, I revived one drive and recovered a lot of data using chkdsk/f,
then chkdsk /r, then using r-studio to recover the data.

I was working with two drives that kept freezing my test computer and even
when mounted in an 'external usb' enclosure had problems.

The second drive went down hard, rebooting the windows XP computer I was
trying to access it from and then freezing the computer during boot. I had
recovered some data before it died, but the owner is going to lose a lot.

I tell my users about a guy I knew that had 9 years worth of research notes
in his car (before computers were desktop size). The car caught fire and
burned. No backups of the data. Never finished his research project. A few
years later, he blew his brains out.

Moral of the story: make backups, frequently AND store them in a different
site than where you keep your computer!





--
bz 73 de N5BZ k

please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.

remove ch100-5 to avoid spam trap

bz wrote:

Eeyore wrote
"Kevin G. Rhoads" wrote:

go to grc.com and buy SpinRite - well worth the money

Strongly seconded.

It's hardly worth $89 to resuscitate an old 20GB drive.

Depends on the data on it.

Nothing of any value I haven't already got a copy of.

I'm interested in doing it for the challenge mainly.

Graham

Eeyore wrote:
Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted

You mean an IBM Deathstar? They're notorious for dying.
Just tossed a couple dead 60G's...