so a data drive has died,

it powers up, sins and clicks then about 2 seconds later powers down until power is dsconnected and reconnected,

its currently in the freezer to try that trck, bt if that fails can the circuit board be replaced with one from one of the same model to recover the data?

 

It's possible. I had a hard drive die and had the information recovered with an exchange of the electronics on the drive.

 

You would need the exact same board model and HDD version number and even then ive had to swap the ROM chips over, that is if its not damaged...

There are many websites where you can buy spare boards, best bet is to have a search on them and maybe email them quoting your board no.

I would also point out that this doesnt sound like its deff a circuitry issue, you could have damaged pins, platter/s increased torque on the case etc etc which depending on your drive could give you such symptoms.

 

agree with darklighterz, have same problem year ago,lost hard time find working hdd board,but wasted,its hdd phisical damage on hdd mechanical and disc.
many time attemp fix failure hdd,no succes,7 dead hdd go to wall,table, as diy clock.

 

it should work. I have had many old Maxtor IDE drives fail. the drives must be same model, but board chip model, etc should not matter. my case I got same result as with original board. problem was in the mechanical which didn't surprise me. I was given like 25 of these drives by a school after upgrades, and new software replaced the need. most students didn't treat them like they should be dropped them, smacked them, etc.
based on the symptoms you state I would guess it is mechanical. the drives need to read a certain area of the platters probably the MBR or sector table that fails they power down. have taken apart 15+ drives they will run forever soon as you cut the heads they do the same thing your talking about.
I heard the freezing trick too, but never worked for me. read actually very bad idea. it can freeze the heads to the platters, make condensation in side drive.