The fault · a knock or a fall
With the power off, a hard disk survives a fall better than most people would guess: the heads are parked away from the platters and the chassis takes the landing. Powered up there is no margin at all — the platters are turning at 5,400rpm or 7,200rpm and the head, nanometres clear of the surface, has no room to move. Which of those it was governs almost everything that follows. So the thing to resist, wherever in Plymouth it fell, is connecting it up for a test. That first spin-up after a fall is often the last good read the disk has in it, and a test spends it.
You will be talking to an engineer
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| What happens | What that points to | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Clicking ever since it fell | The impact put the heads out of alignment and it keeps trying again | Do not power it up |
| A beep after the knock | The spindle will not turn — heads flat on the platter, or a bearing seized solid | Shaking it does nothing |
| The computer has stopped seeing it | Heads on the surface, a spindle motor gone, or harm to the board or socket | Get it inspected rather than retried |
| Fine at first, worse now | Light damage that deepens with every hour it runs | Move while it still responds |
| An SSD or a stick that died on impact | No moving parts inside — look at the board, a joint, a connector | Board-level repair work |
Whatever arrives is booked in under a case number on the day it reaches the bench. An engineer then works out the actual fault, and that part is free. You get a plain answer on what can come off the drive and what cannot, followed by one price in writing. Nothing further happens until you have read it and agreed.
No power reaches the drive until an engineer has been over it by hand. Following a fall, a bent head can arrive at the platter within the first revolution. Where a drive is spun, it goes round once and an engineer stays with it.
A donor head stack matched to the drive replaces the damaged one. A seized spindle is freed off, any head resting on the platter is lifted away, and boards and sockets are repaired.
Whatever reads cleanly comes off first and is stored somewhere safe. Sectors ruined by the impact are attempted only after that.
Thinking it over costs you nothing. Everything the drive gave up is listed for you before any invoice exists, and the bill only follows your go-ahead. Files travel back on media bought in for your job, with return carriage paid at this end, and the case stays on the bench until you confirm they open on your own computer.
What the datasheets show: a notebook mechanism of 2.5" is typically rated near ~300G in operation and about ~650G when parked, while certain 3.5" desktop units are given figures as low as ~30G with platters turning. Shutting a machine down before moving it costs nothing whatever, and no other advice here is worth as much.
The drop came as the kit was being packed away, and it was clicking by the time it reached the bench. Three years of paid shoots were on that drive. A donor stack was fitted, two days went on the imaging, and every gallery came back — that morning's ceremony among them.
Generally yes, so long as nobody has already tried their luck with it. The aim is not to make the mechanism serviceable again — it only has to hold together for a single slow read. A matched donor head stack goes in, the imaging is done gently, and most of the surface usually comes off.
More than anything else here. The same drop with the drive unpowered is a far smaller problem. Nanometres above a platter that is spinning, a head has no room to move at all, and it can score the coating. Leave it unplugged.
Seldom. There are no moving parts, so what gets hurt is the board — a connector torn away, a solder joint split. That is bench electronics, and it can be repaired. The flash chips carrying your files normally come through unharmed.
Almost certainly. A head or a bearing sitting a fraction out of true degrades a little with each spin-up. The fall settled the outcome; every start since then has moved it closer.
The diagnosis is free, and it comes back as a list: which files read, which do not, and what getting them off would take. Until then, leave the drive unplugged.