I was waiting for your reply. Congrats on your success!!!!
I'm back in Chicago so I figured I would give my latest theory a try: Use the same make HDD! And it worked!
I am surprised as to why such a thing happened
I went to the best computer parts store in my area and got a Hitachi 500Gb *7200 RPM* Travelstar drive. They did not have any 5400s in stock and of course I'm not going to wait for that.
I would think twice before buying a 7200RPM drive for archos, but eventually would buy a 7200RPM itself
I put the drive in and hit format... and boom not even 10 seconds later it shut off and went back to recovery! Format again and then same deal BUT this time it said CONNECT TO COMPUTER!!! SUCCESS!!!
All done on FW v1.6.54
Congrats!!!!
I still think it's funny that the WD Scorpio 5400s wouldn't work... Wonder why?
Me also wondering the same thing
Concerns:
-It's HOT! Maybe it's just because I am transfering the 250gb of information from the old drive to the new one... but it sure is hot

. Maybe too hot?

Its going to be hot now that you have a 7200RPM instead of 5400RPM. Once I had to transfer some files to my friends flash disk so I put it to my mini dock and started copying some 3GB HD movie. I was in a class so had put the player in my bag and wow it was damn hot after some time. I was really worried but still working fine.
-Higher RPM = More power. I'm not sure if this is absolutely true. It may not use much more power than a 5400 RPM... any clues?
Yes it will use more power than a 5400RPM disk but not sure how much more
What I have noticed:
-Maybe operates a bit faster? I actually think this might just be because it is completely BLANK!
7200RPM more RPM more speed
-Quieter operation and less vibration!
Strange. It shoud be the other way round. More noise and more vibration
How should I do the GF hack at this point? Just copy the cramfs file(s)? It's been a while since I have looked into that and I vaguely remember that since I did the patched FW for HDD transplantation its just a swap file job. Hidden system partition old to system system partition new. Please confirm for me! THANK YOU!
Have a look at this
guide