How to repair an External Hard Drive After it was Dropped? Important Disclaimer Before Starting Repairs: Before getting more in depth about how to fix an external hard drive after it was dropped, the first thing to do is STOP trying to power on the drive as this will only cause more damage to the platters making a Professional Data Recovery more challenging if not impossible. If you are not sure how to move forward, please give us a call and our Engineers will be happy to walk you through the process if you want to attempt a DIY (Do it yourself) repair. So before moving forward with our DI ..read more

Data Recovery Issue: The issue with the drive is that it is making whirring sounds when powered on and then the sound stops. The drive is still spinning when the sound stops. Initial Diagnosis: We started diagnosing the drive and had to turn off the drive right away as it was making beeping sounds. This is a very common issue with these model drives. The problem is called “Stiction.” Data Recovery Update: We opened the drive cover in our Clean Room and of course, the issue was stiction. The read/write heads were stuck on the platters, right under the parking ramps. Honestly, it’s go ..read more

Data Recovery Issue: The customer mailed us their Seagate (SRD00F1) 1TB External drive because it was making beeping sounds. Seems like the drive was powered on for a long period of time since there is a a couple scratches on the platter. Initial Diagnosis: We opened your drive cover in our Clean Room and the top visible platter is damaged. We could see that the drive was powered on multiple times for a long period of time. Data Recovery Update: Unfortunately, I think this case is going to be unrecoverable. There is a slim chance that a partial recovery “might” be possible, in the f ..read more

Data Recovery Issue: Had a customer bring this drive to us for recovery after they had someone open it (not a data recovery company, not in a clean room). Initial Diagnosis: We opened your drive cover in our Clean Room and it’s not looking great. Although at first glance, it seems like the top platter is clean, when we inspect it under green light, we can see a lot of contamination and a couple of dot-like scratches. Data Recovery Update: We will attempt a head swap later tonight, but I can say almost definitively that the top platter is going to get a ring-like scratch as soon as we try ..read more

Data Recovery Issue: The customer checked in a drive that was making clicking sounds. When we checked in the drive, we noticed that the enclosure was opened. The customer later on today us that he had taken the drive to another Data Recovery company. Initial Diagnosis: The drive powers on, spins up, but isn’t able to calibrate properly, and spins back down. This is always due to either damage to the platters where the data is stored OR damage to the read/write heads that read from the platters. If the issue is the heads, the data will be recoverable. IF the issue is the platters, of cour ..read more

Data Recovery Issue: My customer checked in an Apple iMac 27″ 2014 Fusion drive booting to an error message. They were in the middle of doing an update when the computer crashed. Initial Diagnosis: We opened your drive cover in our Clean Room and the situation is super SEVERE. Unfortunately, I don’t believe this case is going to be easily recoverable. There might be a chance at recovering the data, but it would be the highest tier of recovery that would require disassembling the entire drive. We are waiting for the customer’s response on how they would like to proceed.   ..read more

Data Recovery Issue: The drive started making clicking sounds and the drive was not dropped. The drive has been powered on multiple times. Initial Diagnosis: We opened the drive in our cleanroom and the top platter was clean. No signs of scratches or damage. We removed the read/write heads from the drive and inspected them under the slider with light contamination on 1 of the sliders. Data Recovery Update: We were able to recover 97% of the customer’s data. Clean Room Data Recovery Cost: Our fee for cleanroom recoveries is flat rate $950.00.    WHERE TO FIND US? Working with F ..read more

Data Recovery Issue: The customer’s drive was making noise, randomly. The customer ran a bunch of software with the drive making the sounds. Initial Diagnosis: We opened the drive in our cleanroom to inspect the heads, platters, and for contamination. We had a donor part in stock that was a near-perfect part. We replaced the heads with a compatible donor and the drive is now running without any sounds. Data Recovery Update: We were able to recover 99.5% of the customer’s data. Clean Room Data Recovery Cost: Our fee for cleanroom recoveries is flat rate $950.00.    WHERE TO FIND US ..read more

Data Recovery Issue: Checked in a case yesterday where the drive was dropped and was making clicking sounds. The customer had taken the drive to another Data Recovery Company that diagnosed the drive to have scratches on the platters. The customer brought the case to us for a second opinion. Here is what we saw when we opened the drive-in our cleanroom. Initial Diagnosis: Unfortunately, we could tell immediately that the sliders/heads that read from all of the surfaces were completely mangled. We removed the heads from the drive and inspected each of the sliders under the microscope and th ..read more

Data Recovery Issue: The customer’s drive started to make clicking sounds. The drive as powered on for a while. The customer took the drive to another Data Recovery company that diagnosed the drive to have severe platter damage. The customer brought the drive to us for a second opinion (Keep in mind that the customer is paying a fee for our diagnosis, once the drive cover has been opened). Initial Diagnosis:  We opened the drive in our clean room and immediately saw scratches on the top platter as stated. We will remove the platters and make sure the other surfaces are clean ..read more