Ive more or less given up. I had a little luck with Stellar Data Recovery. It was the only program i found that could actually read the hard drive with any result. But it couldnt recover files.

Yes i used SeaTools as the diagnostics program. It would start a 'short test' and say something like 'error, perform long test for further diagnostics' so i would run the long test, and it would say 'error in sector x' a zillion times. So i reckon its just completely fried.

Thanks for the help guys, ill hit up MSY and see if i can get a free replacement . Next lan i go to ill get most of the data back anyway i guess.

cheers!

PS: The diagnostics said that the hard drive had reached ABOVE 70C at some point. So it could have been much hotter.