Hard drive shot - IBM (08K9763) 20 GB Hard Drive

Yes, firing a shot-gun at a "dead" disk-drive is one way to GUARANTEE that nobody will ever be able to pull ANY data off the computer.

Any 20GB disk-drive is _very_ old, and definitely is OUT_OF_WARRANTY.

Your best bet is to replace the drive. An exact replacement can be bought online for less than $40 at http://www.impactcomputers.com/08k9763.html. Reload your operating system. If you want to try to recover your data files, you can get a USB external drive enclosure and see if the drive can be recognized so that you can pull data files to your new drive. Commercial recovery of the drive is prohibitively expensive. Let me know if you have any other questions. Thanks.

Are you sure that it your hard drive since you have not stated what is happening with your computer i have to make a guess
One bad lead can cause a computer to continue on a cycle or to shutdown or fail to detect/ boot up
Test all leads that attach to your hard drive including electrical extensions,IDE,SATA
the leads from your motherboard to your hard drive make sure they have a secure connection and are not faulty or just replace them there probably old and faulty
make sure all leads that are attached to your drives dvd\cd 3 1/2 inch floppy have secure connections and are not faulty or just replace them they are probably old and faulty ?
hope this helps