Open, and looking at it costs nothing · 9am–5:30pm, Mon to Fri Ring instead, it is quicker: 0115 8220606
NDR Nottingham Data Recovery 0115 8220606 Get my quote
NDR / Devices and media / Repairs to hard drives

Drive repair · what mends, and what is finished

Hard drive repair in Nottingham. One word, two jobs; only one of them finishes with your files in your hands.

One drive, £300 + VAT: a simple figure, put in writing after a diagnosis you pay nothing for. Two types of work share the same name, and this cost buys the second. The first type repairs the hardware; the second removes the contents, and files only ever come back from the second. Electronics return. Firmware returns. The platters, motors and head stacks do not: they are kept going for a single pass across the surfaces and then discarded. Drives come into the lab from Nottingham, Beeston, Worksop, Ilkeston and Melton Mowbray, and each ends the same way: your files, on media bought new for your job.

Only pay if we recover your data, on most jobs Free diagnosis first, then a single price, in writing Parcels come in from Derby, Lincoln and Loughborough

Ask an engineer and the first look is free
0115 8220606

What the hard drive's symptom points to.

Not yours? Open the fault finder →
What is happeningWhat usually causes itWhat that means for you
It clicks, or it ticks. Is that mendable?A head crash. The head stack is done with; donor heads can read the surfaces once and no longerRecovery work, not repair work
Silent — no light, no sound, nothingUsually the board: either a TVS diode has shorted across, or some other electronics have stopped working. A real repair, this oneBoard repaired, then cloned
It shows 0GB, or answers to somebody else's model nameCorruption in the translator, or an error in a service-area module. That is firmware, and firmware mendsFirmware put right, then imaged
A portable's USB socket has broken off the boardReplacing the socket and bridge board, and if the portable is a WD, its encryption keys are stored in that bridge chipGet a quote; post it complete, in its enclosure
A repair shop says it is now 'working'Find out exactly which part was replaced. When a blank disk was fitted where yours was, nothing comes backAsk before any money changes hands
Is a second-hand board off eBay cheaper?The adaptives in its ROM belong to someone else's mechanism, so a donor fitted straight out of the box reads staticYour ROM must be transferred over
How to pack and post it: get a quote first, then pack the drive tightly enough to prevent movement inside the box, declare a value based on the data and not the equipment itself, and send it to the intake lab using a tracked service. Postage back to you is included. Would you like to talk the packing through with an engineer before sealing the box? Call us first. More detail is in our packing and postage guide.

What mends, what is only patched, and what is done for.

Electronics: this really is a repairWhere a drive shows absolutely no sign of life, the most likely cause is that the circuit board has failed: a shorted TVS diode, electronics that have given out, or, on a USB drive, a bridge chip that has stopped responding. Each of those is repair work in the plain sense, and typically the cheapest news anyone here gets to give.
Firmware: mendable with the right kitIf one module in the service area is damaged, or the translator is corrupted, a mechanically perfect disk will identify itself as 0GB, or disappear from the bus completely. Reaching that level takes purpose-built hardware. No downloadable tool can get close.
Mechanics: a single sweep and no moreA seized spindle freed, a donor head stack fitted, heads lifted off a surface they had settled onto: in every case, what that buys is exactly the working time needed for one complete copy, and not a moment longer. Outliving the job is not what the mechanism is for.
Swapping the board stopped working long agoMeasurement only happens once, during manufacture, and the resulting values are stored in a ROM soldered onto the circuit board that shipped with that mechanism. Fit a board from a different drive and the heads give you noise instead of data. Your own ROM has to move across to the new board, and that needs a soldering iron and a programmer.

From the parcel arriving to the files going home.

01

Booked in the day it arrives, and the first look is on us Free

Your case number is assigned when the item is received. Then an engineer works out what went wrong (no charge). At this point, you receive a basic summary of which parts are recoverable and which are not. You also receive a single written quote for the price of the recovery. Accept the quoted price or turn it down, and there is no obligation to pay anything.

The first look is freeOne fixed figure, in writingNo charge at this point
02

Name the part that gave out

Three unrelated things stop a disk working: electronics, firmware and internal mechanics, and all three get described as a broken hard drive. As a result, quotes for one symptom can vary by hundreds of pounds. Establishing which of the three you have is what the free diagnosis does, before pricing is discussed.

We name the part that failedBefore any money is discussed
03

Working long enough for one image

Your ROM goes onto a rebuilt circuit board, and each damaged module in the service area is corrected one at a time. When an original mechanical part has failed, a donor part replaces it. Each step exists for one reason only: one complete pass over the surfaces, from beginning to end, without interruption.

The original ROM carried acrossSteady enough for a single copy
04

The contents come back, not the casing

Everything lifted off your disk is verified, listed and copied to media bought new for your job. Holding it was all the drive was ever for. If light use is still possible for your disk, we will tell you so; if the mechanism has reached the end, we will tell you that too.

Onto brand-new mediaThe worn-out mechanism is retired
05

The file list comes before the bill

A complete file list will be provided before any invoicing. Simply say "yes" or "no" to what we found: yes means it is billed, no means it is not, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. What we find is posted to you on media purchased specifically for your case, at no additional cost to you. We consider the process complete once you have opened those files yourself on your own computer.

Nothing is charged until you agree the figureNew media, bought in for your jobWe pay to send it home

What comes in most often

  • Hardly anybody really cares about repairing hard drives: they care about the contents. People do not need a disk that spins; they need their files. We work to the outcome rather than to whichever word came up on the phone, and we tell you which of the two your own drive is a candidate for.
  • The swap nobody mentions when you pick up your laptop: laptops come back from a cheap repair running perfectly, but the chances are high that the original drive was replaced with a blank disk. Ask where the original drive went before you pay the bill.
  • Electrical damage is the cheap end: a single power spike destroys a board without touching the recording surfaces, so these are typically the fastest jobs and the cheapest to cost.
  • A donor head stack allows one read, not reliability: after being installed, the head stack will give one reliable pass. After that pass, it is done. Anyone who sells you a "working" version of it is relying on the hope that it will fail on you again.

This is where things are settled: electronic problems can be corrected, and firmware problems can also be corrected. These are typical fixes. Mechanical parts do not keep working after they have made one copy. Once the coating on a platter has been scored through, no matter how many times you try, nothing can bring it back. Not in our lab nor in any lab, regardless of what is advertised. This has remained unchanged for years. We keep receiving drives from Nottingham, Chesterfield, Newark-on-Trent and Grantham, labelled with the names Seagate, Toshiba, Western Digital and Hitachi. The cost for one drive is £300 + VAT. The price is always provided in writing after the free inspection is completed, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. If someone offers to return your broken drive working like new, take time to review the offer and check the fine print.

One of these, from start to finish.

NG · NTG-2026-1961ON THE LOG ✓

A repair shop fitted a new disk. Every essay sat on the old one.

A new replacement disk was placed into a laptop and it was returned empty; the old drive was kept in a drawer at a surveying office in Grantham. It sat there quietly ticking away for nearly two full weeks until it was finally brought to us. Once a donor head stack was installed, the measured surveys and photos taken on site were restored, and within two days they were back on the new disk that the shop had placed inside the laptop.

100% of the files backFollowing the shop's 'fix'

What helps, and what does damage.

Worth doing first

  • Ask any repairer what happens to your files first
  • Cut the power the instant the noise changes
  • Have them agree in writing to return your original disk
  • Get a quote; send the caddy, any loose board, every part

What makes it harder

  • Buying a donor board and fitting it straight from the package
  • Turning repair utilities on a failing mechanism
  • Trusting valuable work to a disk built from donor parts
  • Assuming that a computer that boots contains your work

Answers before you spend anything.

Is a failed hard drive genuinely repairable?

Partly, yes. The electronics and firmware are restored: your ROM goes onto the rebuilt circuit board, and each service-area module is fixed separately. Anything mechanically damaged is another matter, though. A donor head stack is used once to make one read pass on the platters. Then it is retired. Your recovered data leaves here. The drive stays here.

Repair or recovery — which is it I actually need?

You get functional equipment at the end of a repair. What data recovery provides you with is your files, and the failed hard drive is written off at the same time. For a drive that has genuinely failed, only one of these can be an honest answer. The other is why a laptop can run perfectly after a cheap repair, yet contain none of its owner's work. In reality, nothing was repaired. The shop merely replaced one disk with another.

Would a replacement circuit board fix it?

Only rarely, and never on its own. A board's ROM holds adaptive values based on measurements of one mechanism and nothing else. Move that chip over to the replacement board and the drive will start responding sensibly to commands. Fit a donor board as it came and the heads produce nothing but random garbage. Moving the chip means desoldering it, so you need specialised tools and a workbench capable of the job.

New disks are cheap. Why does this cost £300?

A hard drive is not what you are paying for. £300 + VAT pays for getting your data off a drive that no longer works and onto media that does. You are quoted a single price in writing once the free diagnosis is finished, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. If you spend your money trying to repair the failed mechanism instead, you still cannot count on the resulting component ever to work reliably again.

Start here if the same thing is happening to yours.

The disk inside the computer → Clicks, ticks and beeps → The disk is not detected → The full device list →

Switched off, a drive cannot get any worse.

The look costs nothing. It gives you a file listing of what opened and what did not, along with the cost of finishing the job, in writing, before anything chargeable begins. In most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Do not switch the drive on until you have that listing.

0115 8220606

Get a quote, then send it Posting it to Manchester