And Larry probably punched those cards with his teeth as well
I would recommend that you purchase a different HD. I've managed to screw mine to the point of no return messing with partitions and stuff. Better yet, buy a new used computer and install Linux there and keep an internet connection open to various Linux chatrooms and on irc #linux.
The first Linux installation I did was on a school library computer
It sat there for at least 2 semesters.