Dead Maxtor - need to recover on the cheap HELP

[Paul]

I was working away on my PC when a couple hours later my HD (a Maxtor
5t040h4) started clicking and the system froze. I tried to reboot but
it would no longer boot from the disk and continued to make that
ticking noise when it powered up.

I got my system back up using a spare HD I had around, and I tried to
boot up with the bad drive on the system as a slave. When it did the
autodect, it did find the HD, but usually it comes back with 'MAXTOR'
followed by the model number but now it comes back with 'MAXTOR RIGEL'
and still ticks.

I managed to get an identical drive (same make, model, PCBA and
everything else) that was still good, so I swaped the external circuit
boards but the good drive was still good and the bad drive was still
bad. The drive was always too quite to hear if the motor was spinning
or not, but going by feel I do think it is spinning at some speed if
not full speed. I assume the ticks indicate head movement.

Is there any chance this can be recovered without costing an arm and a
leg? Are there any tests I can do to diagnose it further on my own, or
even recover it on my own. GetDataBack can't see it because the BIOS
can't see it.

Please post replies, don't email.

 

[sayso_takewashi]

I managed to get an identical drive (same make, model, PCBA and
everything else) that was still good, so I swaped the external circuit
boards but the good drive was still good and the bad drive was still
bad. The drive was always too quite to hear if the motor was spinning
or not, but going by feel I do think it is spinning at some speed if
not full speed. I assume the ticks indicate head movement.

Its dead.If the Hardisk not finding the right "track" all the data its
possibly reading,are garbage.

Is there any chance this can be recovered without costing an arm and a
leg? Are there any tests I can do to diagnose it further on my own, or
even recover it on my own. GetDataBack can't see it because the BIOS
can't see it.

No,grab your Backups.Its lost.
Also no warranty cause of board swapping.