M3 Portable · P3 Portable · D3 Station · S2 and M2
A Samsung-branded external hard drive is recovered here for £300 + VAT, fixed in writing first. Seagate completed its purchase of Samsung's hard drive business on 19 December 2011, and the M3, P3 and D3 models made since have been built by Seagate under the Samsung name. Older units have Samsung's own SpinPoint drives. The faults are the familiar ones: failed heads after a fall, a snapped micro-USB 3.0 socket, a tired adaptor on the Station. 3–4 days at the bench.
Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
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| Family | Models | Drive inside, and how it connects |
|---|---|---|
| M3 and P3 Portable | 500GB–4TB | Seagate 2.5-inch after 2012; some revisions native USB |
| S2 and M2 Portable | Older | Samsung SpinPoint M-series behind a USB board |
| D3 and G3 Station | Desktop | Seagate or Samsung 3.5-inch, mains |
| What you see | The usual reason | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| Light on, spinning, not detected | The USB bridge or its regulator | Drive read directly on SATA; bridge beside the point |
| No light on a mains unit | The power adaptor | Adaptor replaced; drive usually fine |
| Clicking | Heads | Head work on the bench |
| Asks to format or shows as RAW | File system damage, or weak heads | Imaged and 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.
Every external drive is two things: the drive, and the USB board that talks to it. The board is checked first, because a failed bridge, a snapped socket or a dead regulator is the whole fault on a good share of jobs, and because on WD's encrypted drives the board holds the key. Where the drive itself has stopped, it comes out of its case onto the bench.
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 micro-USB 3.0 socket had lifted from the board. It was rebuilt under magnification, the drive imaged, and everything on it came back. It had never failed as a drive.
Illustrative example — replace with a genuine caseThe hard drive business has been Seagate's since December 2011, and warranty on the newer units runs through Seagate. The free look here costs nothing either way.
Only if you have lost the password; it is software encryption and we need it.
Recent ones are Seagate-built, and are recovered as Seagate drives.
£300 + VAT for one drive after the free look, fixed in writing.
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.