Is this information provided to the system by firmware or by a service sector on the hard drive media?
Firmware. You could try swapping out the logic board from an identical model drive into that one, this would allow you to access the data on the drive if the problem is the logic board.
Usually the drive showing up with a garbled name indicates either a drive logic board failure, or a defective data cable or (in some cases) an incorrect jumper setting. I've never seen a drive that failed as a result of things like head crashes and failures with the disk/data mechanism report it's name incorrectly; generally that points to a problem with the logic board.
BTW, have you a log for how long the drive was in use? If it has 5000 hours or more, you got fair service from it.
Are you serious? what do you do? have a notepad open on your desk with scrawled notes?
Turned on computer and thus drive. Used it for 3 hours; this brings the grand total up to 127 hours of operation.
Plugged in my external enclosure for 40 minutes while backing up documents. This brings it's total use up to 50 hours and 37 minutes 10 seconds; however, I also forgot to power it off after disconnection and didn't notice it for a few days, so that brings it up to at least 124 and a half hours of operation.
etc... seriously? a "log for how long the drive was in use"? Who keeps that?
If the firmware was bad, the drive would not work at all.
Absolutely wrong. Firmware can get corruptedand still work properly. Either that or I managed to defy your laws of hard drive mechanics because I accidentally corrupted one to the point where it's ID as far as the BIOS was concerned was a rather long garbled string. I distinctly recall the smiley faces and how it turned half the EPA logo red when the BIOS listed the HD name. the drive still worked for storing and retrieving data just fine, at half it's original size (for some reason).
