Maybe it is just waiting for approval. Anyway, whatever was the attachment (pictures etc.) an answer was already given to you.

Opening the drive was a really bad idea, in any case the chances of getting YOU your data back with "McGyver-ish" attempts are very close to zero, all this will lead you to nowhere due to the lack of tools, chemicals for decontaminating the disk and , later , of HW cloning tools (you are going to copy data, don't you ?) .

Face the reality and either wait for better times / ask who will (if possible at all , now... ) recover your data if you can pay the bill in 2-3-4 chunks / forget it and carry on.

If you want to tinker with it, you have one of the worst drives to play with, but it will be interesting from a certain point of view.

If you want a 2nd, 3rd opinion or so, you better go to other forums.
One thing is sure : I have NEVER seen the happy end on the youtube videos (i.e. successful clone / recover data), there was always a missing part.

Good luck !

I did not get any email. Did you sent to the correct address? dmarques@drc.pt

Also, you can email thatdellguy, who is in CA.

There is no need to jump to the worst case conclusion. It could be that your drive has a stiction fault. In fact a Seagate user at Seagate's forum recently used an unorthodox method to rescue his stiction affected 7200.12 drive.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

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Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

NEVER seen a 500gb 7200.10 with stiction, the very occasional 500gb 7200.11/12 (as in single figures, less than 0.2%) but not a .10

Very irresponsible to offer false hope of DIY fixes, and suggest foolhardy "percussive maintenance" techniques.

But then I don't suppose you care about the data because its not yours, and you don't have people coming to you with these failed DIY attempts expecting to have their drives recovered.

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I didn't suggest any remedy in this or the other thread. I was merely pointing out the fact that stiction is a possibility, as it turned out to be in that other case. And no, the OP in that thread didn't resort to "percussive maintenance". In fact he resorted to something much worse, on his own initiative, and he was successful. No doubt if he'd come here he would have been given no hope (0.2%), as you appear to be implying.

As for not caring about other people's data, I resent your remark. I help everyone to the best of my ability and I offer a DIY remedy wherever possible. That's what people are looking for. They don't usually come here looking for the nearest pro. Otherwise if the OP wants a recommendation, I'll gladly provide one.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.