Clicking, dropped, not showing up, or dead? We can recover all makes of hard drive, including Seagate, WD, Toshiba and the rest. When a hard drive has to be taken apart, we transplant matched donor heads and a motor, and recover your files. See hard drive advantages and disadvantages for more on the trade-offs of this technology.
If the drive is clicking, grinding or beeping, stop running it immediately. These noises indicate the heads are touching the platters, and continued use will drag the sliders along the recording surface, causing further media damage until the tracks are unreadable. Do not run any recovery software on the failing drive, do not open the drive yourself, and do not freeze it. Removing power as soon as possible means the drive will image far more completely.
There are four primary areas where a hard drive can fail: mechanical (a failed head-stack or spindle motor), electronic (faults in the PCB or preamplifier), firmware (corrupt service-area modules or a broken translator) and logical (damage to the file system, partition table or $MFT). All four are within our domain.
All makes and models of hard drive are in scope, current or decades old, internal or external. The manufacturer’s name on the case rarely has any bearing on whether we can recover your data.
Covering Blue, Black, Red, Purple, Gold and Ultrastar (WD) · Barracuda, IronWolf, Exos, SkyHawk and FireCuda (Seagate) · X300, N300, MG and Canvio (Toshiba) · internal or external · across SATA, SAS and IDE.
Every recovery follows a standard flow: stabilise the mechanical side of the drive, create a strictly read-only copy of every sector, and finally rebuild the file system from this sector image. If the failure is mechanical, the physical repair comes first.
Describe what happened: is it clicking, dropped, dead or not detected? We will determine the fault and provide a written quote, typically within 48 hours.
Failed heads or a seized spindle mean opening the drive so that a matched head-stack or spindle motor from a compatible donor can be installed and aligned. Donor-part work requires 50% payment up front.
A failed PCB is repaired or replaced, with the original ROM/NVRAM adaptives carried over. A firmware fault means rebuilding the service-area modules (translator, P-list/G-list, SMART) until the drive enumerates and reports its true capacity.
The drive is imaged sector by sector using a hardware imager. All reads are strictly read-only, with per-head maps and adjustable read timeouts, so the original is never written, and we give weak heads short passes to pull out the most data.
Once we have created our image of the drive, we take the file-system metadata (NTFS $MFT, ext inodes, APFS/HFS+ catalogues) from the image, parse it and rebuild it. Afterwards, we extract your files, including data pulled from remapped and hard-to-read areas of the drive.
We check the recovered files to see that they open correctly, and verify that the folder structure is intact, before returning anything to you.
Your data comes back verified, on a new external drive or by secure download for jobs up to 75GB.
All makes of hard drive (WD, Seagate, Toshiba and the rest) can be recovered from a read-only clone, with head, motor and circuit board work done in-house.
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 one-time fixed fee to recover a single hard drive, once a free diagnostic has been performed and a written quote given, before any work begins.
Here are some examples of what we have recovered lately, across mechanical, electronic, firmware and logical faults. We have removed all identifying information, and every result was verified. Full write-ups: a seized Hitachi Deskstar, an ageing Maxtor read a sector at a time and a Samsung SpinPoint identifying as nonsense.
A failed head-stack, with the sliders resting on the platters. We installed a matched donor head-stack and rebuilt the service area, then imaged the drive.
An impact-induced head crash. We opened the drive, installed a donor head-stack and did a full sector-by-sector image.
A failed PCB. We repaired the board, migrated the ROM adaptives across and did an end-to-end image of the drive.
Corrupted service-area firmware. The bad modules were rebuilt until the drive enumerated, and it was then completely imaged.
Liquid had seeped into the internal components. The assembly was decontaminated and dried, the corroded parts were replaced, and most of the data was retrieved.
The physical media was intact beneath a corrupt file system. The media was imaged read-only first, then the file-system metadata was rebuilt, allowing the files to be retrieved.
Send the drive in for a free diagnostic with a brief description of the fault. One of our engineers will evaluate it and confirm the exact quote in writing before any work starts.
The first step to getting your data back is sending the device to us. Pack it safely, put your contact details inside the package and send it in. Once we have completed the free diagnostic, we will confirm the exact cost in writing before any work starts.
Sending it by post? We’d recommend a tracked, insured service. Dropping it in? No problem: Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm. Please package the device as described above first.
Want a scoped quote first? Fill out the form with as many details about the drive and the fault as possible, and one of our engineers will review it and provide a quote specific to your job.
We’ll be in touch shortly. If it’s urgent, call 01483 901310.
Because we work at platform and firmware level rather than with consumer-level software tools, the label on the case seldom defines how we handle the failure. Western Digital (Blue, Black, Red, Gold, Ultrastar), Seagate (Barracuda, IronWolf, Exos and Rescue-bundled drives), Toshiba, Hitachi/HGST, Samsung and older Maxtor models are all treated identically: stabilise the mechanics, carry the adaptives across, rebuild the service area and image read-only. Firmware families vary, but the imaging-first approach does not.
The technical enquiries we receive most often about failed hard drives.
Usually, but shut it off right away. That clicking or grinding noise is the head-stack hitting the platters, and every rotation causes additional damage to the media. We fit a matched donor head-stack, use per-head timeouts to image the drive read-only, and then reconstruct from that clone.
Often not. A fully dead drive (one that does not spin up or seek) has usually lost its PCB or preamp, frequently to a supply transient, while the platters and data remain intact. We repair or replace the board, migrate the ROM adaptives and then image it.
Usually, yes, and it’s generally firmware rather than lost data. A drive that spins but won’t enumerate, or incorrectly reports its capacity, usually has corrupted service-area modules or a broken translator. We rebuild those until it identifies correctly, then image and reconstruct it.
Yes. Head-stack swaps, motor swaps and platter work are performed using matched donor parts. They are routine here, not a last resort, and are included in the single recovery fee; jobs requiring donor parts take a 50% deposit.
One drive costs a flat £300 + VAT, starting with a free diagnostic and a written quote. Mechanical jobs that need donor parts require a 50% deposit, with the final payment made on success, so in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.
Most of the time, yes. A mechanical recovery takes a 50% deposit, and we charge nothing further unless it succeeds, so an unrecoverable drive never costs the full price. Apart from that donor-parts deposit, in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.
Every make: Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, Samsung, Hitachi/HGST, Maxtor and Fujitsu, over SATA, SAS and IDE interfaces, both internal and external. Because we work at firmware and platform level, the brand rarely affects recoverability.
Not on a physically failing drive. Recovery software keeps the platters spinning while the heads seek, which turns a recoverable mechanical failure into scored platters and permanent loss. If a drive is noisy or won’t enumerate, power it off and let us image it first.
No, it’s a common misconception that could wreck your hard drive. Cooling and heating a drive can bring condensation onto the platters and corrosion to the internal components. Just keep it turned off, dry and still, and get it to us.
Logical recoveries are normally completed within two to three working days. Mechanical recoveries that need donor sourcing and bench work can take three or four working days, depending on the parts needed and the condition of the platters.
Please drop off the bare drive at our Guildford unit, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, or post it to us fully insured. Send just the drive (not the host laptop or PC), well packed, and include your contact information so we know who to contact about your recovery.
That plan is Seagate’s own bundled recovery cover, so if your drive still qualifies, use it before sending the drive to us. If the cover has lapsed or a claim was declined, please send the drive to us: we treat in- and out-of-warranty drives the same.
We offer a free diagnosis and a fixed price of £300 + VAT per drive, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Every make of hard drive is recovered in-house. Get started with your data recovery today.