I did apply flux to the ic's and then used a soldering iron to see if it was dry joints. Thats the first thing i did.

Bingo...

The problem, in any case, is elsewhere.

Whys it bingo?

The fault was as described, The drive started getting better as I cleaned the board up and re soldered the pins on the ic's

If the drive is not detected by the bios to me indicates a pcb fault no? Either something has died due to heat or the solder has become dry or cracked..

Correct me if im wrong.

In most cases, if a drive spins up but is not detected, then the fault is internal, either a head/media fault, or a damaged firmware module. Your PCB is a well known exception in that its Marvell MCU often fails in such a way that mimics a head fault.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

In this case to me it is another story, but only a diagnose can tell.

P.S. the story about the MCU that makes the drive act as it has a head fault happened to me only less than 10 times in several thousands similar drives processed and there were also other problems. On 2 , only the read channel was affected and the rest was operational, only on 2/3 it has been possible to restore functionality but no data was needed , refurb only (don't know after many years if the drive is still on). These are my stats.

Thanks for the offer Spildit. A little too far to send over but thanks any way.

Does anyone have the firmware and rom for this drive?

WD5000AAJS - 32YFA0
The PCB board rev is 2061-701477-900 04P XW 4V05 C8AR 4 0005030 8035

Not fussed if i mess it up as I had a back up of the photos so just want to see if I can recover anything myself. Have a play