Hard disk recovery services

Over the years, the reliability and storage capacity of hard disk drives has increased dramatically to meet the demands of powerful and disk hungry operating systems. Hard disks fail just the same as any other electro mechanical device. The main probelm now though, is that you have lost all of your data. We are able to recover from almost any hard disk failure and get you back up and running as quickly as possible.

There are several signs that a hard disk has failed and we have recovered data from hard disk drives where the situation has been considered a write-off. Such as drives severely damaged by fire, flood or laptop computers dropped down stairs or run over by cars, you name it, we have probably seen it!

Below are some links for details about our specialist data recovery services for drives that show specific symptoms of failure. We are also able to recover from all other manufacturers of hard drives, however those listed below have specific firmware related issues.

We are also able to recover data from all other manufacturers and types of hard disks, incluiding ATA/SATA/SCSI/Laptop and External hard disk drives.

Laptop Recovery

As these hard disk drives are very small in comparison to desktop hard disk drives, the internal mechanics are miniature versions of their desktop counterparts, and so special tooling, equipment and handling procedures are required to facilitate the recovery of the data from these hard disk drives.

Typical failures that we have experienced with these are mainly due to mechanical or electronic failure, where either the drive does not spin at all, or if it does, then quiet but persistent 'ticking' or 'crunching' noises can be heard during powering up - this particular problem is mainly due to an internal head amplifier failure or, more seriously, a head crash or misalignment problem - the majority of which are recoverable.

We have an exceptionally high recovery rate from these types of hard disks, and we are able to recover data from all manufacturers of notebook and laptop hard disks, including IBM®, Toshiba®, HP®, Fujitsu®, Hitachi® and others. If your laptop hard disk drive has stopped working, please contact us for our specialized laptop data recovery service.

We are able to fully recover your data from all types of 2.5" laptop hard disk drives and from the new 1.8" Toshiba hard hard disk drives.

Note:
We are starting to see a failure mode with certain laptop hard disk drives where the motor bearing has seized. We have now developed procedures to recover data from this type of problem.

The symptoms are that the hard disk either makes no noise at all as the bearing has seized or it makes loud grinding or rattling noises at start up then the noise stops as the bearing finally seizes. When attempting to restart the computer the hard disk makes very quiet 'creaking' noises.

The techniques and platter re-positioning systems we have developed enabled us to recover from all manufacturers of drives with seized motors.

All data recovery work undertaken by CDR is under a Free diagnosis and a no recovery no-fee policy.

The initial diagnosis determines the failure mode of the drive, failure modes can be;

Logical, for example where a drive is working, but the data is no longer accessible.

Electronic failure where one or more components have failed on the electronics board on the underside of the drive, or internal head pre-amplifier circuitry has failed. Both require temporary repairs made so your data can be accessed.