i just joined today to say thanks. basically the same thing happened to me, same old music, etc. i went through the same procedures as the OP to determine what was wrong, but i didnt open my drive. the mp3 was REALLY helpful, because my maxtor sounds just like that. i have a diamondmax 10 120GB.
anyway, i tried to revive my maxtor using the methods posted here (tapping, hitting, freezing, heating up) but nothing worked. however i did hear and feel the maxtor try to spin a bit faster, but i get the same results. i tried to tap and then later hit the drive from several different angles, but nothing worked. i have another drive which works perfectly and i know that i hear something when i shake it, but when i shake this maxtor i cant feel anything or hear anything click. when i power on my computer, i can hear the drive grind really bad, and click, but it just wont spin (or wont spin fast enough).
are there other ways of trying to get one last boot out of this drive for atleast 15 mins so i can get valuable data off of the drive?
but one thing i dont want to do is send it to some company that will charge me hundreds or thousands of dollars
