The fault · a knock, or a drop onto the floor
Don't connect anything, wherever in Nottingham it fell. Everything else depends on just one thing: were the platters still spinning when it hit? Shut off, a fall causes much less harm to a hard drive than many believe, because the heads are parked to one side and the frame absorbs the fall. Spinning, there is no leeway whatsoever: thousands of revolutions a minute, the heads moving nanometres from the platter, and nowhere for them to go. The greatest temptation (to plug it in and test) is the one to resist. Typically, the first time a disk spins up after a drop is the last clean pass it makes, and testing uses up that pass. A single drive is £300 + VAT, and assessment of the disk is free. In most cases you only pay if we recover your data.
Ask an engineer and the first look is free
0115 8220606
| What it looks like | What usually causes it | What that means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Clicking started with the fall | A blow knocked the heads out of alignment, and they go back to try again | Keep the power off it |
| A single beep, then nothing | Nothing moves at all: either the bearings are stuck or the heads are lying flat on the platter | Shaking will not free it |
| No machine will find it now | Heads lying on the platter, a spindle that won't turn, or a damaged board or socket | Get a quote and send it in instead of retrying |
| Worked at first, going downhill now | Light damage, deepening with every hour it runs | Act while it still responds |
| An SSD or memory stick that quit working when it hit | Nothing moves in either of these, so it must be the board, a joint or a connector | Board-level repair, not mechanics |
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.
An engineer works on each drive by hand before any electrical connection is attempted. An out-of-alignment head can settle onto the surface within one rotation of the platters. If a drive actually needs to be run, it gets one rotation, with eyes on it.
The damaged head stack is taken out and replaced with a donor matched to your original drive. Seized spindles are released, any head resting on a platter is raised clear of the surface, and boards and sockets are repaired.
Whatever reads cleanly is copied first and banked somewhere safe. Only afterwards is there any attempt on the sectors the fall destroyed.
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.
What the datasheets actually say: 2.5" notebook mechanisms seem to have ratings around ~300G in use (and get to ~650G with the heads parked); some 3.5" desktop units, however, have specs as low as ~30G while they're running. Shutting a machine down before you take it anywhere doesn't cost anything, and nothing on this page will give you better value than that.
It was knocked over during the pack-down and was clicking before it even reached the bench. It held three years of paid work, including the ceremony photos taken that morning. The heads came from a matched donor, the copy took two days, and every gallery came back.
A lot of them will, if nobody has tried before. Getting the mechanism working again isn't the aim. It just needs to survive one slow read. A donor head stack matched by model and batch goes in, the imaging is gentle, and most of the surface usually comes off.
Much more than anything else on this page. Drop the exact same hard drive with the power off and there's much less of an issue. There is no space to give when a head rides nanometres over a rotating platter, and on the way it may scratch the coating. Just leave the unit unplugged.
This doesn't happen that much. With no moving parts inside, the board takes the shock of the drop: either a connector is torn off or a solder joint opens up. Both are bench electronics and both can be fixed. Flash chips store your data and generally don't get damaged in a drop.
Most likely. Nudge a bearing or a head slightly off its alignment, and each spin-up afterwards brings it closer to failing completely. The end was decided by the drop; each start since has moved it closer.
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.