We recently completed work on a Samsung D3 Station 4TB external hard drive after the client panickily brought it in after his son had dropped it. Thankfully, our data recovery team were able to help on this occasion!
After his son dropped, it, the client made the mistake – which is perfectly natural – of powering it up and seeing if there had indeed been any damage been done. When it was powered up, there was a soft clicking noise and the drive wasn’t being recognised; there was also no sign that the platters were spinning. So the client brought it into us, and our data recovery technicians had a look at it for free to see what they could do to help. Our free analysis normally takes around 24 hours, but is frequently much quicker if it’s a common fault our technicians deal with. Being 4TB and nearly half full, the hard drive contained a lot of precious data like baby and wedding photos, so the client was naturally keen to recover as much data as possible.
We use our free data recovery diagnosis in order to provide a fair, upfront quote to the client so there are no hidden costs. Some data recovery companies provide a diagnosis fee, however we think a free diagnosis and quote to complete the data recovery is the best way to go. Our quotes are entirely no-obligation, so you’re free to decline and we’ll send your media back by signed courier free of charge. The hard drive was booked in and immediately taken to our Class 100 clean room, where we undertake all hard drive recovery work. Hard drives aren’t designed to be opened, and even a tiny particle of dust can cause catastrophic damage. A Class 100 clean room ensures a dust and contaminant-free environment for our data recovery engineers to work in at all times.
In our clean room, we were able to safely disassemble the drive and inspect the intestinal mechanical components to try and ascertain what happened when the drive was dropped. It was concluded fairly quickly what the problem was. The hard drive’s read/write heads had clamped to the platter, preventing the motor from spinning. The clicking noise was simply the hard drive’s motor attempting to spin the platters. A hard drive’s read/write heads, as the name suggests, read and write data to the magnetic platters. If they can’t operate, your data can’t be read. Because the original head wasn’t badly damaged, our technician was able to fit it back into place, and then the drive was carefully imaged, allowing us to get a bit for bit copy of all data stored on it.
Thankfully for the client, all of their data was recovered, and the quote provided was £250+ VAT, which was accepted. The client’s data was then transferred to a brand new hard drive.
