Update: I received my replacement EHD today and did what I said I was going to try: plug the adapter of my new EHD into my old one and... oh yeah baby, it worked!!!! I was able to restore my ACDSee database!! * doing the happy dance*
I still lost the tags I made in the past 3 weeks, but compared to the work I would have had if I had to redo everything, that's no biggie! Yay!