But he's still getting hardware errors. There is, AFAIK, no way to get those I/O errors without a hardware problem. Whether the problem is the IDE header, the cable, or the drive, I don't know, but that seems to me the first problem that should be solved.

That's not to say that there aren't further errors, but making it so that those I/O errors don't show up should be step one.
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Bitt Faulk