When a drive won’t power on or spin up, the problem is typically the electronics or the motor, and very rarely the data. Our engineers repair the failed board, transfer the firmware and retrieve your files on site.
If you keep putting power through a drive with an electrical fault, you risk burning out the motor or damaging the board further. Don’t try to fit a replacement board yourself either. Modern hard drives store unique calibration data on a ROM chip, which has to be transferred first; if it isn’t, the drive may be damaged beyond recovery. Turn off the power and contact us.
Nine times out of ten, a completely silent, dead drive comes down to an electrical or motor fault. Below are the causes we diagnose, and reverse, most often.
We have been bringing dead drives back to life since 2002, across every major brand. If your files are on spinning platters, the odds are good that we can help.
SATA, SAS, IDE/PATA and SCSI · internal and external · 3.5" desktop and 2.5" laptop · from 40 GB legacy drives up to today’s 24 TB helium models.
A drive that won’t power on is brought back from its electronics outwards. First we get it running safely, and then we take your data off carefully, in a set order.
Drop the drive in or post it to us. We determine whether the problem lies with the board, the motor or the power supply, and then send a written quote, typically within 48 hours.
Under magnification, we check the board for shorts, blown diodes and burnt components. With external drives, we bypass the enclosure so the bare drive can be tested directly.
We replace blown diodes and failed components, or take a matched donor board from our parts inventory, with no time lost waiting for one.
We move the original ROM chip to the donor board, so the drive reads its own calibration data and powers up correctly.
Once it powers on, the drive is cloned sector by sector onto reliable storage, working patiently around any weak areas.
Your files are then rebuilt from that image, checked against a file listing and returned to you on new media.
Your recovered data will be returned to you on an external drive via insured postal service or for up to 75GB it will be provided to you as a free download.
With boards, ROMs, motors and heads all matched here, most drives that won’t power on can go straight into recovery, with no time lost looking for a donor.
Tell us about your drive and we’ll come back to you, usually within half an hour during the working day.
We’ll be in touch shortly. If it’s urgent, call 01483 901310.
There are no surprise costs and no pressure: a free diagnostic and a written quote come before any work starts.
A few recent jobs on drives that wouldn’t power on, each completed entirely in-house, with identifying details removed and results confirmed. Full write-ups: a Gateway desktop with a seized motor.
A shorted board with a blown TVS diode. We matched a donor PCB from stock, transferred the original ROM chip to it, and the first imaging pass ran cleanly.
The fault was the USB bridge, not the drive. We bypassed the case, connected the bare drive directly and found it was working perfectly.
The board had a burnt motor controller. We fitted a matched donor PCB, carried the firmware across and recovered the entire volume.
Simply send your device to us for a free diagnostic and describe briefly what happened. An engineer will review it and confirm your exact quote in writing before any work begins.
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.
Would you like more information first? Complete the form with further details about your issue, and one of our engineers will review it and send you a tailored quote.
We’ll be in touch shortly. If it’s urgent, call 01483 901310.
If a drive draws no power at all, with no spinning and no clicking, the most common cause is damage to the circuit board rather than any mechanical failure: an electrical surge, or a reversed power adapter, can take out the board’s protection diode in an instant. Repairing those electronics is genuine bench work, quite unlike the simple board swap described in online myths. Every modern PCB holds drive-specific calibration data in a ROM chip, so a donor board will remain dead unless that chip, or its contents, is transferred across. Done properly, a surge-damaged drive frequently reads back in full. Our case files include a recent example: a Western Digital knocked out by a power surge, recovered using exactly this method.
The questions we are asked most about dead drives that won’t power on.
Nine times out of ten, the electronics are to blame (a burnt motor controller, a blown protective diode or a failed circuit board) rather than any loss of data. Since the platters holding your files usually come through intact, these drives can be recovered far more often than people expect.
No. Repeated attempts to power a drive with an electrical fault risk burning out the motor or damaging the board further. Switch it off, unplug it and contact us; the less power that goes through it, the better the odds.
Usually. We repair the failed board or fit a matched donor, transfer the drive’s firmware, then image the drive and rebuild your files. A drive that looks completely dead is routine work for us.
It is better not to. Modern drives have a ROM chip on the board that holds unique calibration information, and fitting a donor board without carrying that chip across will usually leave the drive unreadable. What was a relatively simple repair then becomes a much harder one.
Often not. When an external drive stops working, the fault is frequently the power adapter or the USB-to-SATA bridge, not the drive itself. If we bypass the enclosure and connect the bare drive directly, more often than not it works perfectly.
A hard drive that won’t power on is a flat £300 + VAT. You receive a free written diagnostic first, so there are no surprises, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. A parts-and-labour fee applies only where a replacement board has to be sourced or the spindle has seized.
Once you approve the quote, most jobs on drives that won’t power on are completed within three to four working days, and the diagnostic is generally done in less than 48 hours. If yours is genuinely urgent, let us know and it can be moved up.
All the major makers, from Seagate and WD through Toshiba, Samsung, HGST and Hitachi to Maxtor, Fujitsu, IBM, Quantum, LaCie, SanDisk, Buffalo, G-Technology, Iomega, Verbatim, Transcend, ADATA, Silicon Power, Intenso, UnionSine and ModusTech, in 3.5-inch desktop, 2.5-inch laptop and external formats.
Either bring it to our Guildford office on a weekday between 9am and 5:30pm, or post it to us fully insured. Package it securely and enclose your contact details (name, address, phone number and email) so we can book it in. Your free diagnostic begins as soon as it arrives, and you receive a written quote before any work is done.
Behind every recovery is a store of 10,000 parts and a free written diagnostic to start, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Start your recovery now.