Further to thorkelljarl's post ..
I have a number of disk utilities available from hard disk vendors.
You can get my old ones or follow the install instructions link for the later versions.
http://files.headru.sh/disk-managers/
Of course if the problem is firmware, you may render the drive inoperable, but hey, you can always take it out of the case.
regards
Alan
#### you can probably forget this post, as the disks have moved on a bit in the intervening decade !)