External drives fail in one of two places: the enclosure’s USB bridge gives out while the drive inside is fine, or the drive itself fails — dropped and clicking, seized, or logically corrupt. We recover both, across every make — WD, Seagate, Toshiba, LaCie and the rest — ruling out the bridge first, then working on the drive where needed.
$ bdr diagnose /dev/sdb → Device: WD My Passport · 2 TB USB → Status: NOT DETECTED — USB board failed → Client: confidential · Guildford, Surrey $ bdr engineer-working → USB board: repaired · drive healthy → Encryption: key preserved · unlocked → Imaging: 1.9 TB / 2 TB · 1sectors mapped $ bdr verify → ✓ photos — 24,800 files → ✓ documents — 11,200 files → ✓ drive recovered — data back
When an external drive is clicking, beeping or has stopped appearing, stop plugging it in. After a fall, those noises mean the heads are grazing the platters, and each power-on strips away more of your data. Skip the format, leave the repair tools alone, and don’t shuck a WD drive from its case — its data is encrypted at the board. Keep the drive, its enclosure and the cable together as a set, and send them in.
From a dead enclosure through to a dropped, clicking drive, these are the external-drive faults we see most — failed USB bridges, seized or damaged heads, PCB faults, encryption, and logical corruption.
Every external drive is in scope — portable and desktop, USB and USB-C, current or old. The enclosure and the drive inside set the method, not the badge on the case.
Seagate Expansion, Backup Plus and One Touch · WD Elements, My Passport, My Book, G-Drive and Easystore · LaCie Rugged · Toshiba Canvio · portable 2.5-inch and desktop 3.5-inch · USB 2.0, 3.0 and USB-C. Send the whole enclosure and cable every time, WD especially — on those the encryption key lives on the USB board.
External-drive recovery starts by pinning down the fault — the enclosure’s USB bridge, or the drive inside? We rule the bridge out first, since a failed bridge often means the drive itself is perfectly healthy.
Tell us what went wrong — not detected, dropped, clicking, asking to format — and an engineer determines whether the enclosure or the drive is at fault, then returns a written quote, usually within 48 hours.
The USB bridge is tested first — very often the drive inside is healthy and only the bridge has died, which makes for a quick recovery. Where the drive itself needs opening, that happens in our clean-air bench.
The USB bridge is repaired or bypassed, and where the drive has failed, swap seized or damaged heads and rebuild its electronics on matched donor parts in the clean-air bench.
A strictly read-only image of the drive is taken on specialist hardware, reading weak or damaged sectors gently and re-reading to lift the most data off a failing drive.
Where the drive is WD hardware-encrypted, or BitLocker-protected and you hold the key or password, we apply it and then rebuild the file system off the image.
Your files and folders are recovered, then checked to actually open and confirmed complete before anything is returned.
Your data comes back verified on a fresh drive, or by secure download for jobs up to 75GB.
Any make of external drive — Seagate, WD, LaCie, Toshiba and the rest — portable or desktop, recovered by mending the bridge or working on the drive inside.
Tell us what happened and we’ll get back to you, usually within a working day.
We’ll be in touch shortly. If it’s urgent, call 01483 901310.
A single fixed price to recover one external drive — after a free diagnostic and a written quote, before any work begins.
A sample of recent external-drive jobs spanning bridge, mechanical, encryption and logical faults. Identifying details stripped; every result checked.
The USB bridge had failed in the power cut, while the drive inside stayed healthy. We bypassed the bridge, imaged the drive, and returned the data.
The fall had wrecked the heads. We fitted matched donor heads in the clean-air bench and imaged the drive before the platters degraded.
The file system was corrupt, not the hardware. We imaged the drive read-only and rebuilt the file system, recovering the data.
The heads had stuck to the platters and stalled the motor. We freed them in the clean-air bench, then imaged the drive.
The surge had fried both the board and the USB bridge. We rebuilt the electronics, moved the firmware onto matched parts, and recovered everything.
The drive itself was fine and the deleted folders still sat on the platters. We imaged it and pulled them straight back.
Nine times in ten, a search for 'repair' is really a search for the files.
Some external-drive faults really are repairs, and quick ones — a loose USB port, a dead bridge board inside the case, a power lead that’s given out. We deal with those all the time, since a readable disk is where any recovery starts; and when the drive inside is sound, the whole thing wraps up fast.
A mechanically failing drive is another matter. We repair it only as far as it needs to read — swapping donor heads, working the electronics — rather than to put it back into daily service; what lands back with you is a checked copy of your files on new media. When the files are the whole point, recovery is the honest word — and both paths begin with the same free diagnostic.
Whatever you typed — data recovery from an external hard drive, external HDD data recovery, or external drive data recovery — on the bench it’s one and the same job.
Send the whole unit in for its free diagnostic with a brief note on what happened; an engineer evaluates it and confirms the exact quote in writing before any work starts.
Getting your data back starts with getting the whole unit to us — enclosure included. Pack it safely, enclose your contact details, and once we've run the free diagnostic we confirm your exact quote in writing before any work begins.
Posting it? A tracked, insured service is what we’d recommend. Rather drop it in? You’re welcome Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm — just package the device up as above first.
Need a scoped quote first? Describe the drive and fault on the form and an engineer will assess it and reply with a tailored quote.
We’ll be in touch shortly. For anything urgent, call 01483 901310.
The technical questions we get most about failed external drives.
Not necessarily. Very often it’s the enclosure’s USB bridge that has failed while the drive inside is perfectly healthy — we test the bridge first, and where the drive itself has gone, recover it in the clean-air bench.
Often, but stop using it now. Clicking after a drop usually means damaged heads, and every power-on risks scoring the platters. We fit matched donor heads in the clean-air bench and image the drive.
Usually, yes. My Passports fail either at the USB bridge or on the drive itself, and many are hardware-encrypted. We test the bridge, work on the drive if needed, and apply your WD encryption key to rebuild the data.
Don’t. That prompt usually means a corrupt file system, not lost data, and formatting only makes recovery harder. Disconnect it and send it in; we image it read-only and rebuild the file system.
A single external drive is a flat £300 + VAT, starting from a free diagnostic and a written quote. Should the drive need opening in the clean-air bench, we take a 50% deposit with the balance on success — so most jobs stay no fix, no fee.
On most jobs, yes. Clean-air work takes a 50% deposit and the balance only falls due on success, so an unrecoverable drive never runs up the full fee.
Every make — Seagate, WD, Toshiba, Samsung, LaCie, Buffalo, Maxtor and the rest, portable and desktop. Because we work at bridge, mechanical and firmware level, the make rarely shifts recoverability.
Please don’t. On many external drives — WD My Passports especially — the drive is hardware-encrypted to its USB board, so pulling it out can lock the data away for good. Send the whole unit, enclosure and all, and we handle it safely.
That’s usually stuck heads or a seized motor, the beep being the motor straining. Keep it powered off; we free the heads or transfer the platters in the clean-air bench, then image the drive.
Most external-drive recoveries finish inside three to five working days. Mechanical and encrypted jobs run a little longer, depending on parts and the state of the drive.
Send the whole unit, enclosure included, to our Guildford address fully insured, or drop it off Monday to Friday 9am to 5:30pm. Pack it well and enclose your contact details.
Free diagnostic, a flat £300 + VAT per drive, no fix no fee on most jobs, and external hard drives of every make recovered, portable or desktop, enclosure and all. Start your recovery today.