Failed to Set Silent Seek

Some hard disks have a mode called "silent seek". In this mode, they make the disk quieter by moving the heads more slowly. It's a tradeoff between speed and noise.

Apparently, the new disk that you just put in doesn't support this mode, and the Central is complaining about it. Alternatively, as you say, the disk could be bad. Have you tried the disk in a PC?

It seems to me, however, that failing to start up at all is a bad thing. Unfortunately, there's not a lot you can do about this.

Try the disk in a PC. If the disk is bad, send it back and try another one.
If the disk is OK, this means that it probably doesn't support "silent seek". You'll probably need to replace it with a model that does if you want the Central to use it.

Alternatively, if you're up to the job, you could replace the kernel on the Central with one that masks the "failed to set silent seek" error, so the player starts up anyway.