So having looked at the second video (the first is now unavailable), my usual hypothesis is that the head mechanism lubricant has become sticky with age and that the voice coil mechanism no longer has sufficient power to swing the arm through its full travel. Because the servo (the electromechanical mechanism that controls the arm) can't execute the command to move the arm, the Widget controller decides that the Widget is not ready, and that's why NeoWidEx can't talk to it.
As @ried knows well, I've had some success in the past in repeatedly resetting the Widget. Each time, the Widget controller tells the servo to try to swing the arm again. In my case (but not in @ried's case), the repeated attempts would each free up the arm a little bit, and after a while, full arm travel was eventually regained.
@ried had to try something a little more radical in his case: since repeated resets weren't making much progress, then --- ONLY WHEN THE DRIVE IS SPINNING, NEVER WITH THE DRIVE OFF --- @ried used a finger to push the arm mechanism through its travel. I think he pushed on the black plastic piece you can see twitching in your second video. This appears to have freed up the mechanism somewhat for @ried, though perhaps he should talk about his experience himself
There are a couple of true Apple hard drive experts on this forum, and maybe one of them will weigh in with true knowledge about what to do.
