So my 2Tb Seagate HDD made a beeping noise last night and when I restarted the computer it was no longer detected in Windows 10 or the BIOS. I tested it on an external caddy and still nothing. I have about 1Tb of important files on there (games, photos, music and few more important files). I read that you can use a sacrificial drive to test if the controller board is the problem but you have to match the model number and firmware. I'm in Australia. My Seagate is model ST2000DM001 with Firmware CC46. My local retailers have the same model but with Firmware CC26 and the latest firmware on the Seagate website is CC4H. What's my best option for potentially recovering my data? Paying a professional hundreds of dollars is a last resort as I can't really afford it.
Bear in mind that its not just simple to swap controller boards. Controller boards comes with a "bios" with a unique signature that allows access to the HDD area on the drive. You have to get the replacement board and move the "Bios" chip by soldering the old bios chip to the new controller board. Source: http://www.hddzone.com/seagate_pcb_swap_replacement_guide.html