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Hard Disk Data Recovery ServicesDisk fault ? Call
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Hard Disk FailureBroadly speaking a hard disk can fail in four ways that will lead to a potential loss of data:
Combinations of these four types of failure are also possible. Whether the data on the hard disk is recoverable or not depends on exactly what has happened to the disk and how bad the damage is. Please note that over time, all hard disks will develop bad sectors which can lead to data loss and drive inaccessibility.
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 A Western Digital WD400BB hard disk. Read our Problems and fault diagnosis on Western Digital WD hard disks |
 All Fujitsu MPG series drives suffer from firmware faults. Read our Fujitsu MPG / MPF series hard disk problems page. |
2. Electronic Failure
Explanation: Electronic failure usually relates to problems on the controller board of the actual hard disk. The computer may suffer a power spike or electrical surge that knocks out the controller board on the hard disk making it undetectable to the BIOS.
Electrical failures - How to diagnose: Common Symptom
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The hard disk will not spin up when the drive is powered on - it will appear dead & not be recognised by the computer
Actions to take
- Data Clinic can recover data from all types of electrical hard drive failure.
Although electronic failures can happen to any type of hard disk, we find that Quantum Fireball drives are particularly susceptible to power spikes and quite often it's possible to see visible electrical burn damage around one of the chips on the controller board. Usually, the data on the hard disk has not suffered any damage and a 100% data recovery is possible.
 The Seagate Barracuda (above) and the rubber sleeved 'U' series hard disks have unique failure symptoms. Fortunately, the data is often recoverable. Read our data recovery from Seagate section for further information |
A Quantum Fireball hard disk drive. Typically, electrical faults on these drives will result in one of the larger chips showing signs of burn damage. Read our Quantum hard disk failure page. |
 A Western Digital SATA hard disk drive. Power spikes and likewise can cause damage to the components on the controller board. Read more about Western Digital hard disk failures |
Popular drives that seem to develop controller board problems: Quantum Fireball series, Western Digital drives, Maxtor drives, Fujitsu MPG and MPF series. If you have a laptop hard disk - please also refer to our laptop hard disks problems page.
3. Mechanical Failure
Mechanical hard disk failures are those which develop on components internal to the hard disk itself. Often as soon as an internal component goes faulty the data on the hard disk will become inaccessible.
Mechanical failures - How to diagnose: Common Symptoms
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When powered on, the hard drive will immediately begin to make a regular ticking or clicking sound
Actions to take
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Recovering data from hard drives with mechanical failure requires the drive to be worked on in a clean room as the drive has to be taken apart and investigated in lab conditions. Data Clinic have a fully equiped Class 100 clean room which we use to recover drives with mechanical problems.
Note: We see many laptop hard drives with mechanical failure. Fortunately the data is often recoverable. For specific symptoms, please read our laptop hard disk failures page
Do not be tempted to open a hard disk if you suspect a mechanical fault: there is nothing you will be able to do and you will contaminate the internal clean air environment. There is also a good chance that during this process you will destroy any chance that we have of successfully recovering the data.
 External hard disks are often dropped or knocked. Read our section on dropped / knocked external hard disk drives |
 The IBM Travelstar (now made by Hitachi) is a typical laptop hard disk. All laptop drives can develop mechanical failure - click our laptop data recovery page for further details |
 An IBM Deskstar hard disk. A very common drive that it prone to developing mechanical faults. Read our IBM Hitachi Deskstar hard disk problems page |
 The Quantum 'AS' series drive can develop nasty mechanical problems. Take a look at our Quantum Fireball AS hard disk failure page for more. |
4. Logical Errors
Often the easiest and the most difficult problems to deal with, logical errors can range from simple things such as an invalid entry in a file allocation table to truly horrific problems such as the corruption and loss of the file system on a severely fragmented drive.
Logical errors are different to the electrical and mechanical problems above as there is usually nothing 'physically' wrong with the disk, just the information on it.
Microsoft Windows Based Problems: Four common types of logical failure are shown below - please click which one applies to you or call us on 0870 140 2525
Logical errors can also be tackled with various software tools you can buy off the net, but be warned - if you are intending to run a fix utility on your disk you can very easily make recoverable data unrecoverable. This is especially true when running ScanDisk and Chkdsk on a damaged hard drive.
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Our advanced techniques and methodologies allow us to perform complex
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Laptop Problems: Please see our specific section on recovering data from laptop hard disks
Apple Mac Problems: Please see our specific section on Mac data recovery
RAID Problems: Please see our specific section on RAID data recovery
Linux Problems: Please see our specific section on Linux data recovery
UNIX Problems: Please see our specific section on UNIX (Sun Solaris) data recovery
SCSI hard drive problems: Please see our specific section on Common types of SCSI hard disk drive failure
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