The fault · noise from the drive
As soon as the hard drive starts making a noise, the information on the platters is usually still intact. Whatever is lost is lost after that point. A head which can’t find its place parks. Then it sets off across the surface to locate itself. It might miss. Or park. And try again, for as long as the power is on. Each attempt is one more chance of touching the platter. Unplug the power cable, wherever in Plymouth the drive is, and the process stops at whatever number of attempts it has made.
You will be talking to an engineer
0800 6890668
| The behaviour | What that points to | Where to start |
|---|---|---|
| A click roughly once a second that won't stop | The head needs to follow a path that is indicated by the servo marks created during manufacture. Since they are unreadable, the head retreats to the ramp and makes another pass along the same path. | Take the power off |
| A thin beep, usually from a 2.5" portable | Nothing moves. Either the spindle bearing has seized, or the heads are stuck to the platter. | Do not tap it or shake it |
| A harsh rasp or grind | There is a head on top of the platter. Damage is happening while it continues to run. | Every second running costs more files |
| A brief chirp at each start-up | Calibration failing, usually after a drop | Power it down, leave it |
| Several clicks, then silence | It abandons it, resets and runs the sequence again | Unplug it and break the cycle |
| It clicks on certain files only | Either one of the heads has stopped working or there is damage to part of the platter. | Stop copying and get it imaged |
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 power is applied to it until we’ve given the mechanism and the surfaces of the platters a thorough check. Should a noisy unit need running at any stage, we run it in short bursts of a few seconds with an engineer beside it, closely monitoring it, and it is never left running on its own.
When the faulty head stack is removed, a matched donor stack is installed. A locked spindle is freed, and heads lying on the platters are lifted off without scratching them. After this, the drive is asked to produce a complete image, and nothing else.
The hardware imager works through each sector gently, stepping past anything that causes a stall (and going back to these areas once the easy sectors are safe) until the copy contains everything the disk still wants to give. All steps after that are performed using that copy, so your original drive is never written to.
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.
There is only one thing to do on this page: stop. Head and platter are apart by a few nanometres while rotating at thousands of revolutions per minute. Nothing made to that tolerance self-repairs. Out of all the noisy drives coming in here, the thing that makes the difference between a good result and a bad result is how fast someone pulled the plug.
It had been delivered from a shop on Mutley Plain, ticking once every second and holding five years of accounts. Two donor stacks later, an image was permitted to run at its own pace, and the books opened again with the VAT return still owing.
Unlikely. The click indicates the heads are unable to find their way; it says nothing about the condition of the platters below, and they store your files. Most of the time, donor heads and a slow, methodical image will restore the majority of your files. What ultimately causes loss of data is the length of time the drive runs after the noise begins.
No. This tip predates most drives you are likely to own. Cooling a sealed unit pulls moisture into the unit and shrinks the metal parts; once back at room temperature you will be left with condensation, the beginning of corrosion and a second mechanical failure on top of the first.
Heads attempt to locate the factory-written servo marks but fail to do so, then pull back to the ramp and begin again. Repeated, that is the sound. From outside the case, a bent head, a failing preamplifier and a scored platter are indistinguishable. Only opening the drive on the bench tells them apart.
None that will help. Anything the program requests must still go through heads that have failed, so all it accomplishes is holding the drive at the one task that is destroying it.
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.