I'm hoping somone out there might know somthing about hard drives, or know somone who does. I fried the PCB on a hard drive. But I managed to find and EXACT replacement drive (dead) from which I yanked the PCB and swapped it. I don't think the controller on the new board knows how to work with the platters on the old drive. I think it is stuck trying to calibrate itself. I'm sure at the factory they have to do some sort of adjustemtns when they assemble these things. Does anyone know anything about what they do?
might be a firmware issue. try flashing it (although the likelihood of updated firmware for an hdd seems unlikely, but hey, I've never tried. more power to you)
If you're feeling ballsy - you could find whatever chip the firmware is on (I'd guess it's just some sort of flash memory - but what do I know?) then unsolder it from the dead board and resolder it to the good board. But I'm sure that's surface mount - and if I do say so myself - surface mount soldering/unsoldering is a bit tricky if you don't knwo what you're doing
