toshiba mk8010gah as external?

JimboJangles

New Member
In the past, I've found that a broken mp3 player's hard drive can come in handy as an external if you can find an adapter/enclosure to fit it.
Recently, my friend's iPod ended up broken, so I decided to try it with the HDD that was in it.
HDD: toshiba mk8010gah
Enclosure (image)
So here's the issue: I tried erasing/formatting the drive with Windows 7, XP, and OS X.
XP doesn't even list the drive in the disc manager, but still lists it under hardware manager. Windows 7 lists it in hardware manager, but can't format or erase. OS X recognizes it and sees its size/model etc, but can't erase.
I've done a lot of digging, and read that even HDDGURU's Wipe Tool and Atola's HDD Capacity Restore aren't effective. Apparently Apple has put an HPA/DCO on the drive, and then special firmware... and the only way to remove this is with special hardware? I'd really like to find a working implementation to make this drive usable without buying anything though.
Any ideas or thoughts?
 
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After some more reading and digging, I'm certain there's no way to solve this without custom hardware.
Is anyone aware of a somewhat affordable hard drive firmware repair tool available for purchase online?
 
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