Here are 3 enquiries from this week’s data recovery questions.

A Data Loss Situation Not Related To A Hard Drive Fault

Hard drive is now saying it needs formatting. I cant access any of the data on it. When I plug it in to lap top file explorer stops working.

This is a prime example of a problem that many people think is caused by a fault with the hard drive but actually isn’t. Whenever you see a message that tells you that your hard drive needs formatting it almost always means that you have a file system corruption, not a hard drive problem. Don’t click the ‘Format disk’ option as it will make things worse, instead click ‘Cancel’, power down the system and remove the hard drive, as when a hard drive has no power, no further damage can be done.

These file system corruption messages are caused by

  • Improper system shutdowns / drive removal
  • Installation / upgrade of software
  • Bad sectors over the file system area of the hard drive (very rare)

The chances of successfully recovering data from all these situations is very high providing you follow the advice above. Once you have powered down you hard drive, contact us and we will be able to help.

Wet Phone Not Working

Samsung S2 got wet and will not power up – it has 3 years of un-backed up photos of kids on it which I would like to retrieve if possible.
and…
Iphone 4s water damaged, no power to the phone, would like all photos recovered, taken to other places said they cant do anything as the board is damaged. 🙁 please can you help?

Wet phones and phones that have been dropped into water and other liquids are a very common type of problem for our smartphone recovery service. The rule of thumb is the shortest amount of time the phone is wet for, the better. If a phone gets wet or has been dropped into water the best course of action is not to panic – don’t be tempted to take it apart. Instead use something like a towel and dry the outside of the phone as best you can before placing it somewhere like a windowsill where it can dry out naturally. Fortunately our phone repair and recover services are one of the best in the UK, and it’s rare that we can’t retrieve the data from a phone – take a look at our main phone recovery services section.

Crashed Buffalo NAS

I have a buffalo mini-station nas that appears to have crashed – when I plug it in it does not register and while I can hear it ‘whirring’ the blue light is only flashing intermittently. I am a student with a large deadline coming up and I’m panicking slightly!! I live near Tamworth and so could drop it with you if you think you may be able to help.

The flashing blue light on Buffalo NAS’s can denote a wide variety of faults. The fact that it is still whirring is good as this means power is still getting to the system and we can therefore rule out an electrical problem. You also don’t mention any other noises coming from the NAS so your Buffalo system probably hasn’t got a mechanical fault either, but we can’t rule it out. Best guess at this point is either a file system or non-electical hard disk problem – find out more on our specific Buffalo recovery page. As you live near Tamworth our nearest offices to you are Birmingham or Northampton, or you can use our free daily pickup service that collects equipment countrywide.

Have A Hard Drive / Phone / CCTV Data Problem ?

Contact Data Clinic on 0871 977 2525 or find out where our nearest location is to you and call in. Also, take a look at our Help and Advice section – you may find a problem similar to your own.