I'll give it a shot. In this series Seagate changed the platter coating. So after around 3 years the coating starts to flake off and get jammed between the head and surface.
It is pointless to swap a PCB on Seagate drives these days. Most likely it will not help. The odds are 1:50 that a compatible PCB will be a good match. There is a procedure that is a procedure to perform the proper swap and that requires tools, recovery equipment and knowledge of PCB architecture. On certain drives (some Seagate models ver IV or V) you should never swap a PCB. If you do, the drive will be toast. Same applies to some Hitachi / IBM drives. If data is critical - do not experiment.
...and before you pick a company, do your homework. There is a number of fly-by-nighters who have no clue what data recovery is. Cute and fancy website is an easy catch these days. Don't fall for its appeal, talk to the techs, see how well the conversation goes. Don't settle for the cheapest quote. A good engineer pays higher bills for his "better" equipment, so if data is important, make sure it's done right by the reputable data recovery engineer. Remember, sometimes there is only one attempt and it has to be done right.
Best of luck!
It has the iPhoto library from the months before and a few years after my son was born. All I have from that period is whatever I emailed to friends, family, and Facebook. Music was restored from my iPod, movies were on DVD/Bluray, so only the leaving 60GB of photos.
