WD Caviar Green HDD Failure

[Tranquilo]

My external WD drive will not show up in My Computer.

DRIVE:
WD Caviar Green 1TB
SATA/16 MB Cache
WD10EACS-00D6B1


What it does:
I hear it spin up, after about 45 seconds it clicks, stops spinning momentarily, then spins up again. It then spins for another minute and stops spinning. The drive does not show up in BIOS or Disk Management

What I have tried:
1. Plugged the USB cable in THREE different laptops.
2. Swapped out USB cables.
3. Removed from external case and plugged directly into SATA cable on desktop computer (tried this on TWO different desktops).
4. Removed the logic board, inspected it for burnt parts. Cleaned it with Isopropyl Alcohol (I work in a cleanroom).

Interesting occurrence:
When I first brought the drive to work and plugged it into the USB port of my computer I was able to see the drive. I attempted to run chkdsk to check for errors but after about 2 minutes the drive stopped working.

I have contacted a couple of data recovery companies but they are quoting me $400-$650 dollars.

Any suggestions? Should I try to buy a new logic board? The data on the drive isn't worth $400 but it is worth $100 or so.

My best guess with the resaerch I have done is that the two highest probable causes are:
1. Bad PCB.
2. Corrupted sector where firmware is located.

Thanks,
Tranquilo

[pepe]

Bad heads

650 is cheap.

pepe

[drc]

$400 is REALLY cheap. You're not going to find anything cheaper than that.

[Tranquilo]

Thanks for the inputs people.