if they dont look on ebay for the pcb board i have changed those in the past and brought drives back from the grave

Would a bad board cause those types of failures? Last time I bought a new board it didn't work but maybe it was a different problem on that other hd.

would cause the recognization failure 

Technically, open an external enclosure voids the warranty.  If you manage to get it back together and there isn't any physical damage to the enclosure (evidence that you opened it) you may get lucky.
 
I did recently. Had 2 WD drives (1tb Mybook and a 500g USB) crap out within 2 days of each other.
I opened the external to plug the drive directly into the computer but it was dead.  sent back (cost me $65 as I'm in Australia and had to send them to Singapore! ) and they honoured the warranty.
Even sent me a USB3 version of the MyBook which was nice.
 
 

agent8


I just wanted some sort of redundancy with low power to save all my files. I suppose it wouldn't be the end of the word to keep using an external back up. I've lost to much over the years due to hard drives failing and now this just strengthens my beliefs.

Totally Feel you on that man. Had similar experiences.
 
Well to fix hardrives, i used to use some Hard disk doctor, or some spin rite. The hard disk doctor actually worked. The 80GB drive wouldnt boot at all, but the hard disk doctor took 2 days to eliminate the bad sectors, and it started working after that, Although i don't know if that would work on an SSD.
 
Didn't the guy on craigslist give you some sort of a checking warranty to check the drive? 
 
 
Good Luck with your hard drive issues mate. 

I tried in vein to fix it but it just wasn't happening. One of the clips broke on me while putting it back together so I listed it on ebay as-is/ for parts or not working and I already got a bid on it for what I bought it for so nothing lost and maybe something gained I guess.
 Looking at all my files, I think 2 tb is overkill. I think I may save up and buy a pair of 1 terabyte black drives new and mirror those. Maybe by the time I have enough saved, the price will drop a little more.

By the way, if the board looks burn, it most probably is. And most harddrives are fixed by  board replacement. It's just rare cases when the Harddrive becomes a totally screwed that you'll have to open it up to take a look at the disk :) 

I checked out a replacement board and just figured that since everyone is telling me that green drives are not good for mirroring, I will start over and do it right. I spent $50 bucks on 3 external drives and already sold one for $60, the other (the broken one that this thread is about) will sell for at least $20 and the other 1 tb western digital external works like a champ and I have already backed up everything to it so in the end, I made out like a bandit.

good Luck. :D sounds like a good plan :D