Devices · spinning hard disks
There are four parts that can fail in a hard drive: heads, spindle motor, circuit board and firmware. None of those four improve while a computer is left running, trying to access your drive, and continuous attempts to access a failing drive turn a disk that could still be read into a disk with severe scoring. Shut down the drive and leave it shut down, wherever it sits in Plymouth. Which part failed is something that will need to be determined on a bench.
You will be talking to an engineer
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| What turns up | What that points to | Where to start |
|---|---|---|
| The hard drive is not accessible, and Windows offers to format it before it will open. | The file table is unreadable, hence the volume appears as RAW. Everything you wrote to it remains | Take the power off. Refuse every format offer |
| Data error (cyclic redundancy check) | One sector failed its check when it was read; the surface is probably already on its way out | Abandon the copy. Image the disk entire |
| 0x8007045D — the request failed, I/O device error | The disk fails to respond within the command timeout window | Turn it off immediately and record the complete model number |
| Windows detected a hard disk problem | At least one SMART attribute has passed its threshold | Image everything. Do not go picking files off it |
| 0x800701E3 — a fatal hardware error on the device | Halfway through a copy the disk leaves the bus | Retry nothing further. This is bench work |
| SMART Status BAD, Backup and Replace | The disk's own self-test has already written it off | Never boot that machine from it again |
| Reports a capacity of 0GB, or a model name that is nonsensical | An unreadable service area leaves the drive misreporting itself | Firmware work, done on the bench |
Whatever is delivered is booked in using a unique reference (case number) on the date it arrives at the bench. The engineer will identify the actual fault at no charge. This gives a straightforward answer on what can be recovered from the drive and what cannot, plus one written quotation. There will be no further activity until you have read and accepted the quotation.
No repairs happen before a copy exists. Your disk is mounted on a hardware imager that reads at whatever speed the mechanism can tolerate. The imager sets the problem areas aside for a final pass instead of wasting time trying to read them. Once a secure copy of the image exists, we start working.
Replacement heads come from a matching drive. Locked spindles get unlocked. A failed board gives up its ROM chip to the board replacing it.
Every action is performed on the image, never on your disk. We rebuild the file system within it and show you a list of what was recovered before an invoice is raised.
Give yourself time to consider it. It costs you nothing. We list all of the files we recover for you before sending out an invoice, and we only ask for payment once you have authorised it. We also buy media specifically for your recovery and send it back to you, with the return postage paid by us. The case stays here on our bench until we have your confirmation that the files open properly on your own machine.
How likely is a hard drive to fail this year? Backblaze's Drive Stats is the one substantial set of published statistics, and it shows an annualised failure rate of 1.36% for the 344,000-odd disks the company ran in 2025, compared with 1.55% the year before. The drive sitting next to a desk in Plymouth is nothing like that fleet. It is jostled, pulled out mid-write and carted about while its SMART data goes unread. Consider 1.36% the least it could be.
Weeks had passed since the disk last spun, and two of its heads had stopped working too. A matching donor stack went into it. The first imaging pass recovered 96%, and the ledgers, the invoices and many of the family photos were checked over and posted back.
Generally not. Clicking means the heads have stopped finding the servo pattern that guides them. It reveals nothing about the platters underneath, and those platters hold your files. Fit donor heads, read the surfaces carefully, and most clicking drives will give up the vast majority of what they hold. But each further power-up reduces that share.
Usually. Let us know exactly what was done, and who did it. There is dust in a typical room, and if that dust settles onto a platter it can take the job outside the usual terms where, in most cases, you only pay if we recover your data. Until our engineers inspect the platters, nothing receives a price.
Diagnosis is always free. The price after diagnosis is one total figure, and no billable work begins until you agree to it. Logical faults are found at the lower end; replacement parts at the higher end. For a single drive, expect around £300 + VAT.
Yes. IDE, older SATA and SAS disks come in here most weeks. Age changes which adapter or imager is used, and nothing else.
Diagnosis costs nothing. We give you a report listing which files can be read, which cannot, and what is needed to get them off. Do not connect the drive until then.