Dead HD?

[kill me2]

I got this old 80gb HD full of files I stored in my room, never touched it in a year (I think) in a anti-static bag. When I connected the HD to the computer, the BIOS recognizes the drive, but when it get to the winxp loading screen, the blue bar just keeps going back and forth and back and forth in an infinite loop. I put it in a firewire enclosure, no good, doesnt even detect it anymore. I also tried it on another computer, same thing. I even tried some bootable HD explorer/recovery software, and it find the HD, but reports incorrect space (most likely BIOS issue due to old mobo), and says it cannot read the first few sectors or cylinders, saying its a 'Bad Command'.

I do not know what else to do. Any ideas?

[Airbornederekc]

got a sata connector on ur mobo? get a ide to sata adaptor and hot plug that biatch initialize it though xp and see if it works that way

[kill me2]

Not all mobos supports hotswapping SATA hard drives, and I dont think my mobo can do that, unless you have some info proving me wrong.

[Airbornederekc]

sata itself is hot swapable. i dont see why it wouldnt. after u plug it in and it dont show up right away open up device manager and "scan for hardware changes" it should show up