Hard Disk Drive Data Recovery
All hard disk drives work on the same principle. Hard disks are a non-volatile storage device that stores digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating platters with magnetic surfaces. The data is accessed by read/write heads attached to the end of the actuator arm. These float a very small distance from the platter surface.
Hard disks are very fragile and it is necessary to handle the drives with extreme care. Physical shock to the hard disk typically leads to head assembly failure. Hard disk drives can also fail for a number of other reasons, including circuit board failure due to power surge, firmware corruption, and unreadable sectors.
It is possible for Cheadle Data Recovery to recover data from all hard disk manufacturers including:
Seagate |
Maxtor |
Western Digital |
IBM |
Hitachi |
Samsung |
Fujitsu |
Quantum |
Typical hard disk failures include:
Media degradation: |
Unreadable (bad) sectors - symptoms include blue screens, inaccessible data, hanging operating system, slow reading of files.
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Mechanical Failures: |
Head crash, head misalignment, motor failure (often indicated by a clicking sound). |
Logical Problems: |
Corrupt partition table, deleted or missing files, formatted drive. |
Hard Disk Firmware, ROM & NVRAM: |
Corrupt firmware modules, ROM failure or corruption. |
Electronic Failure: |
Printed circuit board (PCB) failure, head pre-amplifier failure. |
Although there are similar failures across the various manufacturers, there are trends amongst drive manufacturers. Frequently seen failures include:
Seagate |
Barracuda 7200.11 firmware failure (LBA 0/Busy) |
Western Digital |
Power surge resulting in PCB motor controller failure |
Western Digital |
Integrated ROM failure in WD5000AAKS ROYL series |
IBM Deskstar |
Head assembly failure |
Hitachi Travelstar |
Seized motor due to actuator arm stuck on platter surface |
Maxtor |
Firmware corruption |
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All data recovery work undertaken by CDR is under a Free diagnosis and a no recovery no-fee policy.
Opened 3.5" hard disk drive with top magnet removed, showing copper actuator coil (positioned top right)
A 2.5" hard disk drive with the metal cover removed
Please do not attempt to open the cover of a hard disk. Exposing the platter surface outside of controlled electrostatic and ISO 5 clean room conditions will result in complete data loss due to platter contamination. |
