hard drive compatibility

I have a hard drive that I bought 15 years ago. Western Digital Caviar 2420. 425mb IDE drive. Still works fine in my Amiga. I recently tried to image the drive using DD under linux. While Linux recognizes the model number and capacity, it's unable to read even a single block off the drive. I get "ABRT" errors and "DRDY ERR" errors during a read. I have managed using another method to obtain an image of the drive as I'm sure failure is right around the corner, but I'm still interested in the problem I saw. The ATA-1 standard was passed in the same year as the drive was made, 1994 --- it's possible the drive is "pre-standard." The label on the drive says "AT Compatible Intelligent Drive." Think semi-recent BIOS and new versions of linux should autodetect the drive type ? Modify the (limited) info in BIOS? Use hdparam in linux? Thanks Keith P.S. drive data sheet at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/legacy/Legacy.asp?r=3 WD is awesome for still having this on their site. Although I couldn't check the warranty status w/ the serial number, what the heck!?@# :)