Our data recovery team recently recovered nearly 2TB of data from a Seagate Barracuda hard drive, after its owner reported hearing a grinding noise before it failed.
The customer approached us via the contact form on our website, explaining that his desktop computer’s hard drive was failing to start spinning upon start-up, instead making a few short pulse-like bursts before being powered down. As the drive contained important data that had not been backed up recently, the customer decided to seek the help of professional data recovery specialists. One of our account managers gave him a call back to explain the data recovery process, and the drive was sent in to our Cardiff office along with its unique job reference number.
Upon arrival into our office, the hard drive was booked into the system and immediately passed over to our hard drive data recovery team for inspection. The drive was disassembled in our class 100 clean room, which ensures the environment is suitable. Hard drives are delicate pieces of technology, with intricate moving parts, and even a small particle of dust can cause major damage. Read/write heads hover a fraction of a millimetre above the platters, which spin in excess of 15,000 RPM. A contaminant finding its way into the hard drive’s chassis could potentially cause a catastrophic head crash.
Upon being powered up, the client reported hearing a grinding/pulsing noise. While this could indicate a serious head crash, it is more indicative of a seized motor. After disassembling the hard drive, our data recovery team found this to be the case. What the client could hear was the motor whirring into action upon startup, but failing to get the platters spinning. After sourcing a donor drive from our parts library, our team swapped the platters and PCB board over to the new drive, and all of the drive’s data was successfully recovered.
We provide a full data recovery diagnostic service completely free of charge, meaning that you won’t pay a penny until you receive and accept a quote. Following the free data recovery assessment, your account manager will get in touch with you and provide you with a no obligation quote and a list of recoverable files. If you accept, your data will be returned to you, either on a blank drive or via FTP. If you decline the quote, your media will be sent back to you free of charge.
