So, my HDD is fine. I tested it in an external enclosure and both partitions picked up in my desktop PC. Upon further investigation, the one fan’s bearings are at fault. And the warranty expired 2 months ago. And it’s soldered to the mobo (being a laptop and all).

So I had to rush out to buy a new machine today. Against all that is good and holy I could only settle for EveTech. I had to find a place within driving distance, with stock and decent pricing on a fairly high spec machine. So I ended up with an Asus ROG GL502MV with 16GB RAM and an extra 255GB SSD.