The order of how this failed was:
Suspected bad sectors -> accidental reinstall of OS over data by customer -> incorrect power adapter (voltage too high) by customer -> PCB failure -> checked for pre-amp failure, confirmed -> Then I opened the HDD to see this.

Most impressive power surge I've seen - melted plastic inside the HDA. The PCB itself was barely marked with just a tiny burn mark on the main processor.

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CDR - Manchester Data Recovery Services
0161 408 4857
http://www.cheadledatarecovery.co.uk/

Yes, they always call it this way.

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• Remote RAID, NAS, SAN, VMware, DVR (CCTV), flash and tape recovery. Data recovery support.

Good one. wth

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Maybe customer tried DIY fix by inserting the drive in the oven (or with hot air gun).
Is it possible?

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My firmware database:
https://mega.nz/folder/O01DkBRI

The HDD was originally in his desktop computer. After the accidental "return to factory defaults" he told me that he removed the HDD and put it into a standard 3.5" HDD caddy. I can only guess what power adapter he used or what happened next. The customer was open about the sequence of events and I did quiz him in detail about how failure had happened and what attempts he had made - there were no DIY attempts on this HDD.

Interestingly the main PCB itself barely had a mark on it. Usually the HDDs received in which have had a failure of the pre-amp also have a badly burnt out motor controller chip.

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CDR - Manchester Data Recovery Services
0161 408 4857
http://www.cheadledatarecovery.co.uk/