Can't Get Slave Drive Working

[lakeside]

This is kind of a long preamble to my question for which I apologize. I bought a USB drive sometime back and it quit working after a short use but I let the warrant expire before doing anything about it. I used it for backing up files. I think the problem was the USB connector on the drive because when I moved it the drive worked sometimes. It's an Iomga USB, with a Western Digital inside. On the IOMGA forum I was advised to remove the drive from the enclosure and install it internally in the computer. I did that but I'm not sure I did it correctly. The reason I think the drive is good is because it got very little use.

My os is Linux Ubuntu. I used the USB drive on the Linux os while the drive worked.
The USB drive is an 80g. I want to used it in place of a very small drive (6g) I used for backup after the USB drive stopped working. So, I pulled the small drive and installed the 80g drive with cable select jumper as was the 6g drive. And I use the same 40-terminal plug. When I start up the computer, it will not load Ubuntu. I get this error message: Primary Slave; Bad SMART error. IDE Drive operating outside normal specification.

Then I remove that drive and leave just the master drive hooked up (no slave) and the os will not load. So, I reinstall the 6g drive, and now the os will load and the 6g drive is operable. What I want to do is install the 80g drive and partition it for Ubuntu, but I cannot load Ubuntu.with that drive installed.

So, now my questions: Does this mean the 80g drive really is dead? How should I have the jumper inserted as cable select or as slave? (I've tried both) Any advise on getting the 80g drive to behave? I welcome all suggestion even throwing the 80g drive away if that's what I have to do.

[Cricket]

Get the Western Digital hard drive diagnostic utility from their web site and test the 80GB HDD with it.

I had a bunch of 80GB Wester Digital HDDs go bad awhile back. I'm guessing yours went bad too.

Cricket