Questions and Answers – Damaged Hard Drives and Phones
Three common questions in this latest post:
Hard Drive Evaluation
Question: We are an I.T support company, one of our clients gave us an external hard drive that needs recovering.
do you offer a free evaluation service? i only ask as i will need to provide the client with a quotation before agreeing to have the data recovered etc.
Answer: Yes, Data Clinic do offer a free evaluation service: we will examine the hard drive, find the fault and provide a cost for the data recovery. It’s then up to you (or your customer) if you want to proceed. Hard drives that have been opened or had recovery attempts made by other companies are not eligible for the free evaluation, in these cases a cost of £95+vat is charged for the evaluation.
Cracked Phone Screen
Question: I have an iPhone 5s which has a cracked screen due to drop damage. The battery of the iPhone was slowly getting worse a few months ago and one night it suddenly would not turn on at all. I have years worth of photos videos and contacts that I would like to recover from the phone.
and…
My phone is dead and the local repair shops are not able to fix it. my problem is i want to recover this data from my phone. Is it possible for you to do it? Please email me because my phone is dead hence i cant receive calls.
Answer: This is a typical type of phone problem that we are often asked to recover the data from. The good news is it’s usually always possible to retrieve the information from a phone that has been dropped / has a cracked screen / has battery problems. We can’t say it’s always possible though as the amount of damage is different for all phones. Take advantage of our free evaluation service (see above) and we’ll look at your phone and give you a cost for the recovery of it’s data. Read more details about phone data recovery service.
Can’t Copy Data From Hard Drive
Question: I have a 2012 MacBook Pro whose hard drive stopped mounting suddenly. I had not dropped or spilt liquid on it and am told that this is a common problem with my model.
Using an external hard drive, I have been able to see that all the files are still in place and some are even accessible. However, the old drive will not let me copy anything over to a new drive.
Apple’s technicians (Amsys) have checked the cables and tried to recover the data themselves with basic software but tell me they have been unable to do so. Could you please let me know whether you would be able to copy the old data over to a new hard drive and how much this might cost? I am not in a rush so happy to wait longer and pay less.
Answer: Your hard drive has either bad sectors or a week head, that’s what the symptoms you describe tell me. In both cases, rescuing the data from the hard drive requires a hardware approach. Use of software will make the problem worse and make well jeopardize any future attempts to recover the data. Switch the hard drive off immediately and take it into one of our local data recovery centres where we should be able to retrieve the files and folders on it for you. Data Clinic have locations all around the UK including in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool – click the link above for the full list.