Hello all, First time here at this board.

I have a Hitachi
5k250-250
HTS542525k9sa00

That I pulled out of a macbook, the girl didn't backup her data because her seagate external was dead too. Go figure!

Anyways it does not detect at post or sound like it's spinning up when power is applied. There's a very faint chirp if you hold the drive next to your ear almost as if it's about to spin up but then loses power.

From what she told me she turn it off before she went to bed and the next day she turn it on and the the mac gave her a white background with question mark in a folder icon. She then tried to recover the mac with the OSX install CD but the drive didn't show up.

Does this sound like a PCB issue?

I can repair the PCB SMD components as long as it's not programmable IC.

Sounds like head stiction not DIY

I plugged the drive in this morning, that chirping is now a clear beeping sound and I can hear the arm moving but I feel no gyro on the disk. Blown or seized motor?

Edit:
Never mind, I think the heads are blown.

I just tell her if she really wants the data back to take it to a data recovery specialist.

Arm wont move into position if the disk isnt spinning. Chirping noise you are hearing probably is as a result of heads being stuck on platter. That means with this drive it will probably need new heads fitted.