Loose Micro-B · snapped USB-C · dead bridge · wrong charger
The USB socket is the most abused part of an external drive, and the bridge board behind it the most fragile. A Micro-B socket torn off by a lead pulled sideways, a USB-C port that has to be held at an angle, a board that died when a phone charger or an unpowered hub was tried, a bridge chip that simply failed: all of them leave a hard drive that has never failed, unable to speak. On a plain enclosure the drive comes out and is read directly. On native-USB drives, where the socket is on the drive's own board, the board is repaired or replaced with a matching donor carrying the original's ROM. On WD's My Passport and My Book the board also holds the encryption key, and it is repaired so that the key survives. One drive is £300 + VAT after the free look, fixed in writing, 3–4 days at the bench.
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The plain enclosure. A desktop box or a third-party caddy has a separate bridge board with a SATA connector for the drive. When the socket, the regulator or the bridge chip fails, the drive comes out and is read on its own SATA connector. The box is beside the point, except where it wrote the drive with its own sector translation, which is undone on the image.
The native-USB drive. WD Elements and My Passport, Seagate's slim portables and most Toshiba Canvios have the USB socket soldered to the hard drive's own circuit board, and no SATA connector at all. A torn socket or a blown regulator is repaired on that board under magnification, tracks rebuilt where they lifted. Where the board's USB chip has failed, a donor board of the same revision becomes a carrier for the original's ROM chip, because the ROM holds this drive's own adaptive data and no other board will read the drive without it.
The encrypted WD board. On My Passport, My Book and easystore the same board carries the encryption engine and its key. The repair has to preserve the board, or read the key material out of it and apply it during imaging. A donor board on its own gives a drive full of noise. That is why the case of a dead WD drive is never thrown away, and why a shop's PCB swap on one of these is the wrong repair.
| What you see | The usual reason | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| Socket wobbles, connection drops | Solder joints failed | Socket rebuilt |
| Socket torn off with tracks | Board damage | Tracks rebuilt; socket refitted |
| Dead after a phone charger or unpowered hub | Regulator or protection diode blown | Board repair; drive fine |
| USB device not recognized | Bridge chip failed | Bypass on plain boxes; donor board with ROM transfer on native USB |
| Works only with the lead held at an angle | Socket | Socket rebuilt; copy off now if it still reads |
| Drive shows as blank after a PCB swap (WD) | Encryption key left on the original board | Original board's key recovered |
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.
The board is examined under magnification before anything is powered: the socket, the tracks beneath it, the regulators and protection diodes, the bridge chip. Where the board is a separate bridge it is bypassed; where it is the drive's own it is repaired in place or carried by a donor with the original's ROM and, on WD, its key.
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 lead had been yanked sideways and the socket came away with three of the board's tracks. The tracks were rebuilt under magnification, a new socket fitted, and the drive imaged through its own board. It had never failed as a drive. A student's four years of coursework came back the same week.
Illustrative example — replace with a genuine caseAlmost certainly. The socket is solder; the drive behind it is untouched. The socket and the tracks under it are rebuilt and the drive is read through its own board.
Not usefully. The board carries this drive's own ROM and, on WD My Passport, its encryption key. A donor board works only as a carrier for the original's chips, which is bench work.
Usually only the board's regulator or protection diode is. The drive behind it is fine, and the repair is quick.
£300 + VAT for one drive after the free look, fixed in writing. Board repairs are at the cheap end of everything we do.
Often two or three days; 3–4 days at the bench at the outside.
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. Until that list reaches you, leave the drive unplugged.