Platters rotate, head crosses to middle , quickly shoots back to center, disk stops rotating. Need someone relatively inexpensive. Need to recover family photos.

you wont find that here. You have opened it and made things ten times worse and ten times more expensive.

I'm afraid not here nor elsewhere. And all this just because you opened it. Good luck, anyway.

so it cant be opened?

It WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN , instead.

Think you told us .... you did ....

So... as far as I do understand english .... that means ... you can


... but, what you where told .... you should NOT have done it.


+++

some other issue? What is estimated cost of something like this?

At present : likely head problem and/or firmware issue (original problem) , plus (added by you) : media contamination and possible damage , loss of alignment.
For me it's not less than 2500-3000 EUR + VAT and need to see the drive if it is still recoverable.

I think you're one step ahead of yourself... why not post the original symptoms before opening the drive?