Hello, ALL.

I was recently trying to use the WD Data Lifeguard diagnostics diskette
to try and wake up a HDD which FDISK could not detect.

Here's the strange part - - per its label, the Drive is a WD Caviar 5.1
GB,  Model AC35100,  CHS of 10672/15/63 (LBA Translation 667/240/63?).
But my mainboard autodetects it as 11184/15/63, and recommends an LBA
translation of 699/240/63. When I run the WD diagnostics, it detects the
HDD as 5.4 GB, WD Model AC35400L.  The WD utility "write zeroes" seems
to work on it, but takes a loooong time - a couple hours to get thru the
first couple percent of the drive.  FDISK still wouldn't work after
that.

My only SWAG so far is that the Make, model, chs etc. of the drive are
stored on a PROM or EPROM chip on the circuit board, and that someone
swapped circuit boards on this drive, in hopes of making a Frankenstein
and bringing it to life.

Any other guesses/insights/advice will be appreciated.

- - -  JimH.
... "Inquiring minds want to know." - - Bubba
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