The fault · a drop, or a knock while it was running
Leave it unplugged, and resist the test. Everything else turns on one question: were the platters turning at the moment it landed? With the power off, a hard disk takes a knock far better than people expect — the heads are parked away at the side and the chassis soaks up most of it. Spinning, there is no margin at all — thousands of revolutions a minute, a head flying nanometres clear, and no room anywhere for it to move. That is why plugging it in to see is the impulse to hold back on. A knocked drive often has one clean pass left in it, and a test uses that pass up. £300 + VAT covers one drive, the assessment ahead of it is free, and on most jobs no charge arises where the data cannot be read back.
Put it to an engineer — the first look costs nothing
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| How it shows itself | The usual reason for it | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| The clicking began when it landed | The knock pushed the heads out of true, and off they go to try again | Keep it switched off |
| One beep, and then nothing | Nothing turns at all: the bearing has locked solid, or a head is lying flat on the platter | Shaking it will not help |
| Now no machine will see it | Heads down on the platter, a spindle refusing to start, or a damaged board or socket | Post it rather than retry it |
| It worked at first and is getting worse | Slight damage, worsening for every hour it runs | Do it while it still answers |
| A stick or an SSD that stopped on impact | Neither has moving parts, so the fault lies in the board, a joint or a connector | Electronics work, not mechanical |
A case number goes on it the day the parcel lands, and an engineer settles what has truly failed before anything else happens — free of charge, and first in the order of work. Back to you come two things together: a straight note of what is liftable and what is not, plus one figure, fixed and written down. Accept it, or decline and owe us nothing.
The drive is worked over by hand before a single cable goes near it. A head knocked out of true may come to rest on the surface before the platter has completed a turn. Where one genuinely has to run, it gets a single rotation, watched.
A donor matched to your own drive takes the place of the damaged head stack. Locked spindles are freed off, a head sitting on a platter is lifted away, and damaged boards and sockets are put right.
Whatever reads cleanly is copied off first and put somewhere safe. Only after that does anyone go near the sectors the impact ruined.
What was recovered is listed for you first, and only then does a bill exist. Approve the list and it is invoiced; turn it down and it is not — and where nothing has come back, most jobs carry no charge whatever. Recovered data travels home on fresh media bought in for your job, with the postage at our end. Your case is not closed until you have read those files on a machine of your own.
The datasheet figures: a 2.5" notebook mechanism usually carries a rating near ~300G while running, rising to about ~650G once the heads are parked; a 3.5" desktop unit can be quoted at ~30G with its platters turning. Shut a machine down before carrying it anywhere and it costs you nothing, and nothing else here pays back as well.
It went over during the pack-down, and the clicking had started long before it ever reached the bench. On it were three years of paid work, that morning's ceremony among them. Heads came from a matched donor, the copy took two days, and every gallery came home.
Usually, yes — provided nobody has already tried. The point is not a working mechanism; it has to hold together for one slow read, no more. A donor head stack, matched on model and on batch, goes in; imaging runs gently; and most of what the platters hold comes back.
More than anything else on this page. Knock the same drive with nothing plugged in and the problem is a much smaller one. A head flying nanometres over a moving platter has no give in it at all, and coming down it can score the coating. Keep the drive unplugged.
Less than you would think. Nothing moves in one, so the shock goes into the board instead: a connector wrenched away, or a solder joint that has opened. Both are bench electronics, and both are repairable. Your files sit in the flash chips, and those usually come through untouched.
Almost certainly. Push a bearing or a head slightly out of true and every spin-up afterwards moves it a little further along. The ending was decided when it landed; each start since has brought it closer.
Looking at it is free. Back comes a list of what opened and what did not, together with a single price to finish, set down in writing while you are still free to say no. On most jobs an invoice only follows the data. Until that list reaches you, leave the drive switched off.