Hard drive recovery · internal and external · HDD · clicking · not detected · dropped · deleted
Hard drive recovery. Internal or external, the drive is the same inside, and so is the way it is recovered.
A hard drive that has failed inside a desktop or laptop is the same drive, with the same faults, as one inside an external enclosure: the same platters, heads and controller, the same clicking when the heads fail, the same silence when the motor seizes, the same quiet loss when files are deleted or a partition formatted. We recover both. Take the drive out of the computer and send the drive on its own, or send an external drive in its enclosure, and it is imaged sector by sector on hardware that controls every retry before anything else is attempted, with mechanical faults repaired on the bench first. A single drive is £300 + VAT, fixed in writing after a free first look, and on most jobs there is no bill if no data comes back. Posted from anywhere in the UK, or handed in at one of ten drop-off points, and sent home with the postage paid.
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The faults a hard drive arrives with.
What you see, and what is usually behind it.
Describe yours to us →| What you see | The usual reason | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| Clicking or ticking, then silence | Failed heads or preamp | Heads replaced on the bench; platters imaged |
| Not spinning at all | Seized motor, stuck heads or a dead board | Freed or swapped on the bench; then imaged |
| Detected at the wrong size, or 0 GB | Firmware or translator damage | Firmware repaired; the drive imaged |
| Asks to be formatted, or shows RAW | Partition or file system damage | Rebuilt on the image; nothing written to the drive |
| Very slow, freezing, disconnecting | Bad sectors, or a weak head | Imaged weak areas last, with every retry controlled |
| Deleted files or a formatted drive | The map removed; the data still there | Recovered from the image, if nothing has been written since |
How a hard drive is recovered here.
Imaged first. Whatever the fault, the first act is a sector-by-sector image on a hardware imager that controls the timeout and retry of every read, taking the healthy areas first and the weak areas last, so that a drive that is slowly failing gives up the most data before it gives up altogether. Nothing is written to the drive, and nothing is attempted on it directly.
Mechanical faults repaired on the bench. Failed heads are replaced with a matched donor set, stuck heads freed, a seized motor dealt with by a platter swap, a failed board replaced with its original firmware chip moved across, and firmware damage repaired in the drive's service area. The aim at every step is a drive that will read long enough to be imaged, not a drive that will work again.
The data rebuilt on the image. A damaged partition table or file system is repaired on the image, deleted and formatted data is recovered from it, and the files are listed for you before any bill exists. They go home on fresh media, and the drive comes back with them or is securely destroyed at your request.
Internal and external, the same job. An external drive is an internal drive in a box with a USB bridge; take the drive out of a computer and it is exactly what arrives inside an external enclosure. Both are £300 + VAT for a single drive, fixed in writing after the free first look. The one thing we ask is that the drive comes out of the computer: whole desktops and laptops are not accepted.
Questions answered before you commit.
Do you recover internal hard drives, or only external ones?
Both. Take the drive out of the desktop or laptop and send the drive on its own; an external drive comes in its enclosure. The drive inside is the same either way, and so is the price.
How much does hard drive data recovery cost?
A single drive is £300 + VAT, fixed in writing after a free first look, and on most jobs there is no bill if no data comes back. Larger sets start at £500 + VAT. The pricing page sets it out in prose.
Can a clicking hard drive be recovered?
Usually, if it is powered off promptly. Clicking is a mechanical fault, failed heads or a failed preamp; the heads are replaced on the bench and the platters imaged. Every further attempt to spin it up risks scoring the platters.
Can you recover deleted or formatted files?
Yes, if nothing has been written to the drive since. Deletion and formatting remove the map, not the data, which stays on the platters until it is overwritten. Stop using the drive and send it.
How long does it take?
Usually 3–4 days at the bench for a single drive, longer where heads or a motor have to be replaced, and you have the file list before anything is invoiced.
Nothing gets worse while it is powered off.
Take the drive out, or unplug it, and tell us what it is doing. The first look is free, the figure is fixed in writing, and on most jobs an invoice only follows the data.