The fault · shock damage
Many of the dropped drives we see come to us from people around Maidenhead. Don't try turning it on first to test if it works. That's probably the last chance your drive will get and you'll waste the attempt. A stationary mechanism can withstand a shock you wouldn't believe when it is turned off. When it spins, its heads float just a few nanometres above the disk, with nowhere in the assembly to give. How the same fall lands is different based on only one factor; this is whether the platters were spinning at the time of impact.
Describe the fault to an engineer
0800 6890668
| The signs | The likely cause | Start here |
|---|---|---|
| Has been clicking since the moment it dropped | The drop knocked the heads off track so it keeps trying to find the track again | Turn it off forever |
| Beeping ever since it was dropped | The spindle won't turn. Either the heads have stuck down onto the platter, or the bearings have frozen up. | Don't hit it loose |
| Won't show up on the computer after the drop | Heads may be folded, spindle motor may be dead, or board/socket may be broken | We should take a look at it; you shouldn't run it |
| Initially good, however now in the process of deteriorating | Minor damage that increases progressively in severity with usage time | Act on it while it still has functioning capability |
| An SSD or memory stick that is non-responsive after a drop | No actual mechanism to damage, so the breakage involves a broken joint, port or circuit board | A repair takes place at the level of the circuit board |
Nothing is chargeable until you say yes. Every item gets a case number of its own immediately upon receipt, an engineer determines what has failed, and you get a clear picture of which files have a real possibility of being recovered. The single quote that follows is fixed, written down and does not cost anything.
No device may be used (powered up) by anyone, until an engineer has evaluated its suitability for operation. The very first time that the drive rotates after a fall (drop) is when the bent head contacts the platter. Therefore, if the unit is rotated at all during the evaluation process, it will be rotated just once while being watched.
Damaged head assemblies are replaced with matching donor units. Locked spindle(s) are released. Stuck heads are gently freed from their 'stuck' positions. Broken PCBs or connectors are repaired.
All readable data is immediately duplicated as part of the initial recovery process. Once this duplicate is safely stored, the engineer returns to attempt to recover the remaining data that were lost due to the original failure.
You don't get charged anything until you've confirmed and authorised that everything is fine after seeing the entire list of what was recovered. Any recovered items are returned via brand-new storage media and the postage costs for these are covered by us. We do not consider a project complete here until we receive confirmation that you have been able to successfully access and review every item you received back.
Manufacturer specifications: A typical 2.5" notebook drive might have a specification rating of ~300G while being used and ~650G while sitting still. Some 3.5" desktop drives are rated as low as ~30G when operating. Turning off your device before lifting it costs you nothing and provides better protection of your data than anything else you could possibly do.
It was already clicking at the first test on the bench, having hit a hard floor while a wedding shoot was being packed away. The donor head stack went into the drive (and there were three years of client data sitting on this thing), and every gallery from all shoots, including the morning's wedding shoot, was recovered before the second day of imaging ended.
Usually, unless someone has done something else first; recovering files from a drive is nearly always worth the money, while repairing a mechanical failure in the drive rarely is, and a donor head stack with slow, careful imaging gets most of a fallen drive back.
Bad: It is the worse of the two. When the shock lands while heads are flying they can scratch the platter. A running system can take a fraction of that which a parked system would absorb. Shut down immediately.
Almost never. No internal components are moving upon impact, therefore a failure shows itself as a split circuit board, a broken connector or a dry solder joint. These are electrical issues and the NAND holding your files is generally unharmed.
Yes, almost always. Slight damage to a head and/or bearing increases each time the unit spins up; thus the shock caused immediate damage and each subsequent startup simply sped this process along.
Every additional power-up asks for even more of a drive that is already starting to fail. First open a case with us, and let the free diagnosis tell you how much remains.