WD3200BUDT dead or alive?

Hiya people,i came across this site whilst googling. Im after some help regarding the 320 internal drive.

i had an accident with my laptop and i got another. i hoped of recovering all my data (pics etc) off the drive and onto my new laptop BUT it wont connect. I have purchased 1 of those usb-stat cables and it wont work,even after 15 mins. Itll power up,spin then stop and restart. SOMETIMES itll connect (bing) then lose contact. I have read many forums saying that its dead but some say you can replace the board with same model  as the memory is stored onto the writeable disc and get it working that way.

Oh an just to say i have been in device manager and disk management and it wont show.

I came across this post http://community.wdc.com/t5/Other-Externals/HD-quot-Failure-quot-Fix-I-Tried-and-It-worked/td-p/389001 which gives me hope of retrieving all my stuff off it. The sata cable was only cheap but a first thought of call,the usb enclosure a mate has told me to get as itll work that way.

Can someone please tell me i have SOME hope lol

Thanks

You can try to replace the board but this is no easy process

chances are the drive can get damaged further

visit this website if you decide to go ahead donordrives.com

thanks for your reply…but as my question,is the drive readable via one of those sata enclosures?

i have x amount of pics from years back i would really like back. It does power up so i know it works to some extent. Sometimes itll connect then go straight off which after reading that link i posted makes me believe its a hardware fault and maybe something inside is lose?

right so ive just purchased 1 of those enclosed harddrives,if this doesnt work then ill have to purchase another harddrive but idetical and swap the boards. Ive seen it done on youtube so ill hav to give it a try myself.

right ok so on from this it seems my wd3200budt HD is fine. I received the usb enclosure case this morning,altho it wont wotk on my vista sp2 laptop,it will connect on a windows 7 laptop.

Problem i have now is it Windows cant format it? it shows up in my computer,when right clicked it says 0 bites used and 0 bites free? but the blue 3d circle is full. Upon device manager,1 partition is 40gb (something like that) and the other remaining space is 290? i cant format it there either. Altho it shows as Healthy (active),it wont format.

i have tried a recuva program but when i select drive E it says its not connected? When i use i Care,it picks up the drive but shows nothing in it but a folder saying RAW?

what do i do?

Help apreciated

Thanks