Wow... thanks for replying ... here are some more details
Failed HD:
Seagate 400GB Ultra ATA drive - ST3400620A FIRMWARE 3.AAD
What actually happped:
I bought two external NAS enclosures, wiped my back up drive and was about to rerun a fresh backup to the newly formatted backup drive when the external enclosure holding the original data started to smell of burning electronics... quickly turned off... but too late, it jacked up my original data drive... right after i wiped the backup drive to do a fresh backup! I put a second drive in the enclosure (a cheap small drive) just as a test and it fried it as well. So...
What I've tried:
1. I tried some recovery programs, and giving it a rest to ensure it's cool, but can't get it to spin up at all with it's pcb
2. bought duplicate hard drive with firmware slightly different (crashed is firmware 3.AAD, duplicate drive is 3.AAE), and drive spins up but wont mount in windows.
Any ideas?
Maybe I can put an add on craigslist and pay someone with more expertise than me to try and trouble shoot it. it's actually been dead for 6 months and i was bit too depressed to deal with it after a few weeks...