I've asked elsewhere, but would like to, as someone ignorant, ask once more such that, if everyone agrees on the issue, I can be confident in what the source of the issue is.

The issue itself is the standard: attach a power supply to the HDD, the arm moves across the platters for a couple seconds, proceeds to slam into the center spindle (thus a clicking sound). That happens for a a few seconds, after which the drive spins down.

I've been told bad heads, preamp, or media? I just couldn't see any actual damage to the platters (due to bad heads) nor any debris in the filter.
Note, when it spins it does sound like it spins nicely. I.e., the motor should be fine.

I've ordered a USB-UART adaptor so that I can see the behavior at startup to see if that could shed any light on the issue.
Hopefully, that will be able to tell me if it's a preamp issue.

That behavior typically indicates bad heads.
If any, media damage may be on lower disk surfaces.
Powering the drive on without cover is not recommended.

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Hard Disk Drive, SSD, USB Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Gotcha. Considering it's 3 stacked platters, I guess it could be out of sight. Once I get the USB-UART I'll obtain the preamp Id via the Seagate commands and, hopefully, be able to purchase a drive from which I can extract the heads and transplant them.

It's probably obvious, but the only intent is to have it boot once for imaging, not to actually fix for the long-term.

Edit:
I hope that replacing the heads would be sufficient. Supposing there is damage to the media (out of sight), I hope I wouldn't have to do some "magic" (modify where the arm reads from?) so that it doesn't attempt to read broken sections.

Edit:
2 platters and 4 heads according to spec. actually.

Very often, after the heads swap (unless you make your own tools and practice on another drive to make sure they are reliable, you will need special tools for this for heads transplant), the drive will have firmware and bad sectors issues that need to be addressed. So, high chances that you will not be able to access the files.

Cloning is necessary. For free software based tools, which have their own limitations, can look into ddrescue or hddsuperclone (better all around).

Obviously, professional service is recommended should maximizing the chances of recovery is the goal.

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Hard Disk Drive, SSD, USB Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

I hope by special tool you merely mean something to ensure the heads from the donor drive don't destroy themselves, i.e. buying a couple of these: 3.5 Seagate 2-platter 4-head combs.

As for the issues that need to be addressed: bad sectors I understand. After all, I'm fiddling around with the object writing to the disk and the disk itself--this isn't even mentioning existing damage that could be there on the second platter. However, I didn't really understand why you said "firmware issues". I thought that would only be an issue if something on the controller for the HDD was busted. Again, I'll admit my ignorance towards the topics.

As for the cloning, yep, I've used ddrescue, but as you mention the latter being superior, I'll look into that.

Correct, professional help would be preferred, however, I don't know if I want to invest that into this. Besides, what's the point in studying about computers if one is never willing to actually try to put that knowledge to some use? E.g., how one makes use of one's programming knowledge to make scripts to help one's self out in day-to-day life.

I do want to preemptively thank you though for answering my questions. With these kinds if scenarios, be it a broken HDD or a broken phone, one tends to only hear the "professional help" or "get a new one". Yes, both of those are indeed great options, but the fact that I'm asking is because I want to at least understand my issue if not solve it myself.

+1.

If i needed to estimate your probable success rate vs a pro, i would say 30 vs 90%.
Not counting with any errors a layman can make during the head swap.

pepe

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Adatmentés - Data recovery

Unfortunately, I would say 30% is being over optimistic, given the mistakes made already and lack of tools and experience

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PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

7200.12 models park heads on top of the disks, by the motor.
Your heads comb example does not match this model drive.
You will need something like:
-https://hddsurgery.com/data-recovery-tools/hdds-sea-7200-12-11-10-p1-set
-https://apextoollab.com/head_unstick/sea_1112es2lp_2.html

But, as always, do your due diligence to get the right tools.

However, I didn't really understand why you said "firmware issues".
The firmware, or the drives operating system in lay terms, is stored on the disk, as well.
https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php ... re+newbies

Most times, due to accumulation of bad sectors on the disks, certain firmware components become problematic.
So, the work order will entail: mechanical work > firmware work > cloning as best as possible bypassing all bad sectors.
So much to learn...

"Send to professional" advice comes into place if the data is important to you. If learning is more important then the data, then hey, DIY is the way. From experience, to learn how drives work [and not work as they should], it requires many cases to make sense of what is happening. One recovery where there are multiple problems, will just raise more questions and wonders, making you second guess your work.

To learn about mechanical work, start with cheap drives that are mechanically in working condition. Practice until disassemble and reassemble process are smooth enough where the drive still works once worked on. Would recommend starting with older parking ramp based drives. Those are easier. Then can attempt on-disk heads parked drives, and then finally the newest ramp based, which is kind of a bit of combination of both techniques.

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Hard Disk Drive, SSD, USB Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts