WD5001ABYS-01YNA0 (WD RE2) spins up, ticks, then spins down

[philpem]

I have a WD5001ABYS-01YNA0 on the bench at the moment. It was connected to a faulty Molex to SATA power adapter cable which had a loose connection.
The drive spun up and down a few times while connected to a USB cable, then failed with the current symptoms.

Current symptom is that the drive will (on a known good power supply and cable) spin up, reach speed, tick a few times, then spin down slightly. It spins back up to speed, ticks a few more times, then spins down.

PCB model is 2061-701477-900 (on the label) / 2061-701477-002 (on the PCB)

The data on the drive isn't terribly important to me (I've recovered what I needed already). I'd like to use this as an opportunity to try and fix it and learn more about hard drive repair. My last fix was a Seagate 7200.11 with firmware issues (the one Seagate issued a firmware patch for).

Thanks!

[pcimage]

It will almost certainly have bad heads and/or preamp.

There is a small chance it could be a bad PCB though, as the PCB wasn’t killed.