lattesurf, When lior first started talking about the problem in another thread, I didn't know what Diskonkey was either. I was surprised to find out that it made PC World's
The 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years list at #9. However, I don't think their list was perfect, but it was interesting to read.
I also had suggested the HP tool. The Killdisk might be worth a try. If you go through page after page of that thread I posted a link to and nothing works, lior may just have to face the fact that it is broken.