2.5' Toshiba HDD Drive

The three pin device at the far right side of this pic is D1 (only two pins are active, so yes it is a diode), and that may be a protection diode, as it is near F1, which is likely a fuse, but I didn't see that.

i have done a reverse connect on these with no damage

try another drive and see if its the computer rather than the drive

You are probably quite right, but since the connector was put on the wrong way, the +5v went through the connectors at the other end.

On a 44pin ide pinout diagram they are normally labelled DD7 and DD8.

In the second picture you can see it labelled RM2. From the connector DD7 and DD8 seem to go straight to this componenet, whatever it is. There is also a RM3 and RM4.

-Al

I have tried it in my desktop and the original laptop it came out of, neither of them detect it in the bios, and I cant even hear the drive spool up :-(

yeah, that does sound bad,

but they can be near silent when the do run too!

runn it to a local pcshop, ask the guy to give it a check.

for $10 buks it may be worth it if you had any good data on it. else you might sell it for parts on ebay!

If he is looking to BUY parts for it, he obviously wants the data on it.