The symptom · nothing shows up
All drives received from across Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall have one thing in common: when you try to access them on your computer, they don't appear. That describes a circuit, and gives you no clue as to what is in the files. In order to identify what may be wrong with your drive, answer these three questions in sequence. Can you see it listed in the BIOS? Does it show up in Disk Management? Can you open it in File Explorer? The place the drive stops helps show which component is damaged: the electronics, the firmware or the volume.
You will be talking to an engineer
0800 6890668
| The behaviour | What that points to | Where to start |
|---|---|---|
| Disk Management shows Unknown, Not Initialized | It responds, but with no valid signature, and nothing of the partition table remains | Answer no to that box |
| The message that ends with “…before Logical Disk Manager can access it” | Agree, and an empty partition map replaces everything | Decline it, then unplug |
| Disk Management reports No Media | Only the controller responds; the storage behind it is out of reach. This is a hardware issue, not a logical one. | Keep it disconnected |
| The BIOS has no entry | A burnt circuit board, a protection diode that has shorted, or a service area that will not load: electronics or firmware | Repair at component level |
| A 1TB disk listed as 8MB by the BIOS | Damaged firmware or translator, which makes the reported size meaningless | Firmware tools are needed, not software |
| Power goes in, nothing happens | Burnt-out electronics, and the TVS diode has shorted | Usually readable |
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.
Nothing is taken apart, and nothing is left running. A simple look at the BIOS, Disk Management and Explorer will tell you which of three possible repairs is needed: repairing the electronics, rebuilding a service area, or repairing the file system on a duplicate.
The shorted diode is removed and replaced. If the board cannot be repaired, a donor board is used and your original ROM chip is moved onto it. The adaptive values on your original ROM chip were taken from your own platters and would not match any other disk.
Once the drive responds, a sector-by-sector image of it is made. From then on all work happens on that image, and your own drive is put away on a shelf, untouched.
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.
The point worth keeping: nearly all the drives we receive that are invisible to their computers have a fault in their electronics or firmware. Those are the parts that tell your computer the disk is there. They are not the parts storing your data. A drive that is not recognised is telling you about its own hardware, and nothing beyond that.
A power cut during the night, and in the morning the desktop showed only one disk instead of two. The WD would not spin at all, and there was no BIOS entry for it. The board had failed at the TVS diode. Its ROM chip was fitted to a donor PCB and a full image came off two days after the parcel reached us.
Yes, generally; whether the board is repaired or replaced, the damage rarely gets beyond the electronics to the platters or flash. Dead drives are among the more predictable failures that we see on this bench.
No, never. That box will write an empty partition map over the top of the map showing where your files are. Say no and pull the cable off the drive. Have an engineer look at it before doing anything else to it.
No. A disk that is missing from the BIOS has simply lost its ability to identify itself, not its data. The failure is in the electronics or in the code that lives in the service area, and your data is in neither of these places.
Very probably. Protection diodes absorb spikes: they are put there to short out and fail first, before anything further in can be affected. What you've lost is electronics. Your files remain unaffected.
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.