Not detected by PC BIOS.

Drive sounds like it is good except does not spin to full speed when started - spins continuously at a clearly slower speed.
No other noises.

QUESTION: I'm wondering if one of the economy flat rate recovery shops might be good enough. What concerns me is the practice of cutting a head off a scratched platter resulting in zero recovery for the entire platter side. It has 3 platters and not eager abandoning recovery of 1/6th of it's capacity (there is about 500gb on it)

Perhaps being made in 2008, this is working in my favor.

A typical lab will not cut a head unless there is 0 chance of recovery of that platter. Cutting a head also prevents dust / particles from being kicked up and landing on the other working heads / clean platters.

Drive would need to be opened up to see what's going on. Get a free evaluation and ask for pictures - most creditable labs (economy or otherwise) will do this for you for free.

If heads are stuck in the ramp / near the ramp that could cause RPM to be slow; terminal on your Samsung drive would confirm that.

Thanks for the advice.

When you said "terminal" did you mean recovery impossible for drive or just a platter or platter side?

Thanks again.

This drive has a serial terminal port which transmits diagnostic/progress information as the drive spins up.

How to connect a terminal adaptor on a Samsung drive ?
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=116&t=189

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