This WD2500 drive will spin up but dosn't get detected in the pc bios.
It makes 10 hard clunks and then there is a trrrr trrrr trrrr type sound. If the ide cable is left connected the drive will stop spinning.

A visual inspection of the board show signs of overheating but no clear component damage.
I cleaned up the contacts but no change to the drives operation.

On powering up the drive the circuit board feels immediately warm in the area of the motor ic.

So are these the classic signs of a stiff motor/spindle and a failed motor control ic ?

Is the firmware chip likely to become corrupted or could it be reused on a similar matching board?

Is there likely to be even more damage than I have already described?

Sounds like a high motor torque problem.
If you have bad bearings or something is rubbing inside the motor torque goes up.
The servo chip will keep dumping more current on your motor to keep it at the proper speed.
If the drive is not spinning at the correct speed you get no data.
The more current it dumps on the motor, the hotter the chip gets.
If the servo chip gets too hot it will burn out then nothing will spin.
You must fix the high torque problem.
Some times if you put a fan on the chip you can keep it running long enough to get data off.

Hi DRNJ!
Thanks for your reply!

I also think the bearings are partialy seized.

I guess most recovery labs would go for a platter swap to a known good drive unit.

And yes one time I used an office fan to blow air at a near new Samsung 250gb drive. It gave me just enough time to transfer the data before almost total seizure. Even with a few horrible and very loud screeching sounds from the bearings.

Are there any methods one can use to free the bearings enough to perform a recovery?