WD2500AAJS not showing up as a valid file system

[docwisdom]

I have a sata hard drive from an 07 iMac. It was the system drive and today I got a filesystem question mark when booting. I have already swapped the drive and have the machine back up & running with a backup from 15 days ago. I would like to now go into this drive and try to recover the more recent data. This is HFS+ btw

What I have tried:
Plugging into an external sata interface via usb and it DOES spin up
macos recognizes it as a 2tb drive but no file system (this is incorrect, it is a 250gb drive)
disk warrior does not recognize
spinrite does not recognize
data rescue 3 doesnt retrieve any information.
I dont hear any clicking/ticking to indicate head problems. It does a standard spinup and seek.

I tried a quick dip in the freezer with only the same results.

It seems like since it does spin up that I should be able to read something off of it at a low level. Any thoughts?

[poehere]

Wow you have used all the most destructive software you could think of on this drive. Not alone the freezer. Wow do you want data or to kill this drive for good.

[docwisdom]

Well they happened to be the only tools in my limited box. How about some constructive help here

[jono-ats]

This is a hardware or firmware problem that you can't fix without proper tools & knowledge.

Sorry . . . this one is NOT D.I.Y.

Is that sufficiently constructive?

[docwisdom]

Yes. That was good

[pcimage]

If it's spinning up OK, staying spinning with no clicking, then it's almost certainly a firmware issue or a PCB issue.

Either way it's not DIY'able.

[cheadledatarecovery]

You could pop it on to a PC and see what it is listed as in the BIOS. Rather than a WD2500AAJS it might be listed with a name like "HAWK", although probably not on this series of drive (ROYL by the look of the model). I've seen a lot of strange PCB failures in the WD5000AAKS where by the drive spinds & sounds good but it is only possible to access one LBA at a time.

Chances are you will need help with this one.
All the best,
John

[docwisdom]

removed the pcb, cleaned all contacts and traces, popped it back in. recognized by diskwarrior and after 9 passes the data is readable enough to get the latest data I was looking for.

thanks