TOSHIBA DT01ACA050 - head clicking, then spins down

[kotel]

Hi

While back I got an TOSHIBA DT01ACA050 hdd which was left outside for who knows how long. After confirming there weren't any issues on the PCB I powered it on. Was greeted with head clicking, spinning down and immediately spinning up, then it repeated that 3 times and shut down.

Then I came back to it a day later and it magically fixed itself? It was booting into windows which was left on it. SMART showed nothing wrong. After formatting it and putting a new w7, it complained mid-install that a file couldn't be found. Going back to drive selection I noticed that the toshiba wasn't showing up. Rebooting the system made the drive start clicking again.

I suspect SA damage, but I have no idea if there are terminal pins on these drives, so I ask here for guidance on how to troubleshoot.

[Zero Alpha]

Maybe the weather got to it. You could check the electronics for any corrosion

[kotel]

Maybe the weather got to it. You could check the electronics for any corrosion

There's nothing wrong on the PCB. No corrosion/defects. Forgot to mention the drive sometimes clicked its heads during normal operation like it was starting to do the same thing as before.

[kotel]

It looks like the drive starts clicking the moment it passes an certain temperature. I guess this could either mean bad PCB/platter damage/weak heads that only work when they are cold.