Our data recovery team recently completed work on a Seagate One Touch Portable HDD that had suffered from a motor failure, and were able to recover all of the client’s data.
The client got in touch after hearing a beeping noise emanating from inside his Seagate portable hard drive. A common symptom of hard drive failure is strange sounds coming from within the drive, so if this happens consistently, you should power down your hard drive immediately. The hard drive itself was less than a year old, but the client had recently moved house, and it was possible it had been knocked about during the move.
After speaking with one of the data recovery team, the client sent in the hard drive, along with its unique job reference number that would follow it throughout its journey with us. The job reference number also ensures that any information relating to the job can be called up promptly when needed, if the client requires an update. Our data recovery team then examined the drive in our class 100 clean room, in order to provide a no-obligation quote to the client.
The data recovery team quickly ascertained that the hard drive’s spindle motor had failed. The spindle motor is located on the underside of a hard drive, and it is what spins the drive’s magnetic platters at incredibly fast speeds, typically 7,200-15,000 RPM. If a hard drive is making a beeping noise – or if the platters have stopped spinning altogether – it’s most likely a motor failure. Motor failure is one of the more common physical faults are data recovery team see, but it’s also one of the most challenging to fix. Our data recovery team sourced a suitable donor drive with a working spindle motor, and carefully swapped over the platters and the PCB board. We were able to successfully recover all of the client’s data.
If your hard drive starts making a new and continuous noise, there’s a chance it’s due to a physical issue like a spindle motor failure. Upon hearing a noise, you should immediately power down your drive and consult a professional data recovery specialist. You can read more about the causes of a hard drive motor failure here.
