Ok, this is scary, but my brother had a hardrive with a boot sector virus. This is a very bad thing for a computer to have. The drive would not even boot so he calls around and almost every tech said the drive is gone throw it away and buy a new one. All except one old ex-mainframe type who tells him to take two kitchen refrigerator magnets, put one on top and one on the bottom of the drive. He says to keep the magnets on the outside of the platter and away from the circuit board of the drive. Next he told him to rub them in a circle 3 or 4 times.
It demagnatized the drive killing the boot sector and the drive was good as new. He Fdisks, and re-formats and Vuala! The drive works fine now.
From the voodoo jungles of home recording..........