FireWire 400 and 800 · eSATA · USB 2.0 · IDE inside
The drive from the back of the cupboard: a Maxtor OneTouch, an Iomega, a LaCie d2 with FireWire 800, a WD My Book Studio with eSATA, a Freecom or a no-name USB 2.0 box with an IDE drive inside. They arrive because somebody has died, or moved, or finally wanted the photographs, and the drive has not been powered in years. Old drives fail in old ways: a spindle that will not start after a decade still, a bridge whose interface no modern computer has, a power supply with dried-out capacitors. The platters usually hold everything. One legacy drive is £300 + VAT after the free look, fixed in writing, 3–4 days at the bench.
Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
0800 6890668
| What is going on | The usual reason for it | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| No spin, no sound | Stuck heads or a seized spindle after years off | Freed on the bench; read once |
| Spins, then a rhythmic click | Failed heads | Head work |
| Port does not exist on the computer | FireWire or eSATA host missing | Drive read directly |
| Seagate 7200.11 invisible in any box | The 2009 firmware fault | Firmware repaired from the terminal |
| Reads as unformatted | HFS+, FAT32 or an old NTFS with damage | Rebuilt on the image |
A case number goes on it the day the parcel is opened, and an engineer settles what has actually failed before anything else happens. A drive that clicks or beeps is not powered again; one that spins is read on our own imaging equipment, never in a computer that will retry and time out and retry. Back to you come two things together: a straight note of what is liftable and what is not, plus one figure, fixed and written down. Accept it, or decline and owe us nothing.
An old drive is not powered to see whether it still works. It goes onto the bench where a stuck spindle can be freed and stuck heads lifted before the motor is asked to turn, because the one attempt that matters is the one that does not scrape.
Stuck or failed heads are replaced with a matched set from a donor, seized spindles freed, and firmware faults corrected in the drive's service area from the terminal. The drive is not repaired to be used again; it is made to read once, in a single careful pass, and that pass is planned before it begins.
Nothing is worked on live. The whole drive is imaged once, head by head and weak areas last, with reads timed to what the platters can stand, and the file system is put back together on the image. Encrypted volumes are unlocked there too, with the original board's key or the password you supply, and never on the original.
What was recovered is listed for you first, and only then does a bill exist. Approve the list and it is invoiced; turn it down and it is not — and where nothing has come back, most jobs carry no charge at all. Recovered data travels home on fresh media bought in for your job, with the postage at our end. Your case is not closed until you have opened the files on a machine of your own.
The drive would not spin: its heads had settled onto the platter over a decade in a loft. On the bench they were lifted and the spindle freed, the drive brought up once, and its 250GB imaged in a single pass. Inside were the photographs from a wedding in 1998, scanned by someone who had since died. They went to the family on a new drive.
Illustrative example — replace with a genuine caseAlmost always. What fails is the mechanics on the first spin-up, not the data on the platters. Send it unpowered and let the bench bring it up once, safely.
No. The drive comes out of its box and is read directly on the bench.
Yes. IDE drives are read on the bench with the right adapters, and old file systems are rebuilt on the image.
£300 + VAT for one drive after the free look, fixed in writing.
3–4 days at the bench after the free look.
Looking at it is free. Back comes a list of what opened and what did not, together with a single price to finish, set down in writing while you are still free to say no. On most jobs an invoice only follows the data. Until that list reaches you, leave the drive unplugged.