Our hard drive recovery team is still hard at work through the COVID-19 pandemic, and recently completed work on a WD external hard drive.
The client got in touch regarding a WD My Passport external hard drive that had begun to emit regular clicking noises. Suspecting there could be a physical fault, they sent the hard drive to our data recovery lab. The client was given a unique job reference number, that followed their device throughout the process, and it was then sent to our hard drive recovery team for a free inspection. We offer all our clients a free diagnostic service and a no-obligation quote to complete the data recovery. If accepted, our data recovery team will begin the work, and if declined, your device will be sent back to you via courier, free of charge.
Our hard drive recovery team discovered that the external hard drive had suffered from a head crash. Head crashes can occur when a hard disk drive is dropped or knocked, or through general usage over time. We sourced donor parts for the drive from our spare parts library, and were able to recover 100% of the client’s data, around 500GB. Their data was returned on a replacement external hard drive, and the original drive was safely destroyed.
When a hard drive is powered up, you should expect to hear a low hum which gradually rises in pitch as the platters begin spinning. As the heads leave their parked position, there will be a small burst of ticking sounds, although you typically won’t be able to hear this unless your ears are close to the hard drive. After this initial burst of ticking sounds – which should last no more than a few seconds – you should hear a steady hum, with the occasional irregular ticking sound as the heads change positions. If you’re hearing a regular clicking, scratching, ticking or grinding noise coming from your hard drive, this could be indicative of a physical failure, such as a head crash or motor failure. If this is the case, you should immediately power down the hard drive, as the client in this instance did. Doing so, and contacting a professional data recovery specialist rather than attempting to fix the problem at home, will ensure the best possible chance of a successful data recovery.
Our data recovery team are able to look at any device for free, and provide a no-obligation quote to complete the work and return your data. Remember – it costs nothing to get your device looked at.
