A hard drive is just a big magnetic disc (actually several discs). A disc is scanned by a head, which can move from the inside of the disc to the outside. So the data can be stored in circular, concentric tracks. So far you probably knew.
Contrary to what you might think, the computer never really knows the exact physical location where some bit is stored. The disk uses timing to keep the same space between all the bits, and can thus find all the bits, once it has found the location of one. You'll understand that the HD clock must be very precise.
What the BIOS probably means by "locking" the disk, is actually finding the start of a track, i.e. sector 0. This sector is marked with a special code, placed on the disk just like the other bits (actually it is a very long "gap" - a loss of signal, followed by some special signal). It is very important that the HD can find this marker - and in your case it's probably been overwritten.
As I said, you can get the disk to work by reformatting, but you'll lose all your data on the disk. However, some specialized tool could help you out, because probably not all tracks are lost. Use your imagination as to how you can get the tool to run.
Contrary to what you might think, the computer never really knows the exact physical location where some bit is stored. The disk uses timing to keep the same space between all the bits, and can thus find all the bits, once it has found the location of one. You'll understand that the HD clock must be very precise.
What the BIOS probably means by "locking" the disk, is actually finding the start of a track, i.e. sector 0. This sector is marked with a special code, placed on the disk just like the other bits (actually it is a very long "gap" - a loss of signal, followed by some special signal). It is very important that the HD can find this marker - and in your case it's probably been overwritten.
As I said, you can get the disk to work by reformatting, but you'll lose all your data on the disk. However, some specialized tool could help you out, because probably not all tracks are lost. Use your imagination as to how you can get the tool to run.
