Data Clinic - Data Recovery Services
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
Call Us Free: 0800 151 2207
  • Data Recovery Home
  • Data Recovery Services
    • Hard Drive Recovery
    • External & USB Drives
    • RAID / Server Recovery
    • NAS
    • SSD
      • SanDisk SSD Data Recovery
      • Lenovo SSD Data Recovery
    • SD Cards
    • Mobile Phones & Tablets
      • >How The Process Works
      • Android Data Recovery
      • iPhone Data Recovery
      • Samsung Data Recovery
      • Sony Xperia Data Recovery
      • Nokia / Windows Data Recovery
      • Water Damaged Phones
    • CCTV & DVR
    • Macs
    • Windows Computers
    • Lost & Deleted Files
    • Advanced Forensic Data Recovery (ADR) Services
    • Password Recovery
    • Forensic Investigation
    • Encrypted Volumes
      • Bitlocker
      • Check Point Endpoint
    • Bitcoin, Crypto & NFT Wallet Recovery
    • Tape Recovery
    • Tape eDiscovery & Conversion
    • Advanced Recovery Service
    • Spare Parts & Donor Drives
    • Disk Manufacturers
      • Seagate Hard Drive Data Recovery
      • Western Digital Hard Drive Data Recovery
      • Toshiba Hard Drive Data Recovery
    • SCSI Data Recovery
    • SQL Recovery
    • How Do Hard Drives Fail ?
  • Locations
    • Belfast
    • Birmingham
    • Bristol
    • Edinburgh
    • Glasgow
    • Leeds
    • Leicester
    • Liverpool
    • London – Central
    • London – City
    • Manchester
    • Newcastle
    • Northampton
    • Sheffield
    • Southampton
  • Help & Advice
  • News
  • About Us / Contact

Hard Drive Help & Advice

hard-drive-helpWelcome to Data Clinic’s regularly updated Help and Advice section. Here we discuss and provide links to various different types of hard drive problem and what can be done about them. Take a look below and see if you can find a problem similar to yours. If you can, great! – if you can’t, use the form to your right to contact us and tell us more about the issues you are having.

Further down this page we discuss current known issues with particular hard drives in the marketplace and have links to some case studies of recent RAID and server recovery work we have completed.

  • To find our more about our services and capabilities, click on Data Recovery Services from the main menu above.
  • To find your local Data Clinic lab go here: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/dataclinic-locations/
  • Click for Data Clinic’s main data recovery homepage

Help and Advice

  • April 2022: Some recent phone data recovery photos from the Data Clinic lab: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/various-phone-data-recovery-photos-from-our-lab/
  • March 2022: iPhone water damage, CCTV DVR recovery, iomega hard drive recovery: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/water-damaged-iphone-dvr-cctv-and-iomega-hard-drive-recovery/
  • February 2022: Metamask wallets: Lost passwords and seed phrases: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/forgotten-password-and-lost-seed-words-on-a-metamask-wallet/
  • February 2022: Recover a lost passphrase on a Trezor hardware wallet: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/passphrase-recovery-on-a-trezor-hardware-wallet/
  • January 2022: Recovering the data from iPad / iPhone error 1110: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/recovering-data-from-iphone-error-1110/
  • December 2021: Accessing the data on a Bitlocker encrypted hard drive: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/getting-access-to-a-hard-drive-encrypted-with-bitlocker/
  • December 2021: Recovering a Bitcoin wallet from a broken hard drive: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/recovering-cryptocurrency-from-an-old-or-broken-hard-drive/
  • November 2021: Latest data recovery enquiries from London, Bristol, Edinburgh and Southampton: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/latest-data-recovery-enquiries/
  • November 2021: Recovering MetaMask crypto wallets: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/recovery-and-reconstruction-of-metamask-wallets/
  • October 2021: Data recovery from Seagate Rosewood hard drives: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/seagate-rosewood-hard-drives-a-review/
  • September 2021: iPhone and Samsung phone data recovery enquiries: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/samsung-and-iphone-data-recovery/
  • March 2021: A case study of our Advanced Data Recovery service on a WD20NMVW hard drive: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/advanced-data-recovery-case-study-wd20nmvw-hard-drive/
  • March 2021: Using non-Apple charging cables to charge for iPhone / iPad can cause damage: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/charging-apple-iphones-with-non-apple-charging-cables/
  • March 2021: Some of the wonderful recoveries we’ve done on broken phones: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/some-of-the-wonderful-things-we-can-do-with-broken-phones/
  • February 2021: New Data Clinic data recovery office located in Southampton, Basepoint, Anderson Road, Southampton SO14 5FE: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-and-hard-drive-recovery-southampton/
  • February 2021: New Data Clinic data recovery office located in Bristol, Castlemead, Lower Castle Street, Bristol BS1 3AG: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-and-hard-drive-recovery-bristol/
  • February 2021: New Data Clinic data recovery office located in Edinburgh, 9-10 St Andrews Square EH2 2AF: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-disk-drive-repair-and-data-recovery-services-edinburgh/
  • February 2021: RAID and server data recovery services across Greater Manchester and the North West of England: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/nas-raid-5-and-server-data-recovery-greater-manchester/
  • February 2021: Seagate Backup Plus, Expansion and Barracuda hard drive data recovery in Greater Manchester: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/seagate-backup-plus-expansion-barracuda-data-recovery-manchester/
  • February 2021: Phone data recovery from in and around Greater Manchester, Salford, Stockport, Bolton, Oldham etc: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/phone-data-recovery-manchester/
  • February 2021: Western Digital My Passport / Elements hard drive data recovery in Greater Manchester, Stockport, Bolton, Oldham: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/wd-my-passport-elements-data-recovery-manchester/
  • February 2021: Hard drive and phone recovery Q&A: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-drive-and-phone-recovery-qa/
  • January 2021: NAS and hard drive recoveries: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/nas-and-hard-drive-data-recovery/
  • October 2020: KenXinDa mobile phone data recovery: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/ken-xin-da-phone-data-recovery/
  • October 2020: Nokia phones – “Unable to find a bootable option. Press any key to shut down“: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/nokia-phone-data-recovery/
  • October 2020: Lenovo SSD data recovery: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/lenovo-ssd-data-recovery/
  • October 2020: SD card and Micro SD card data recovery: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/sd-card-data-recovery/
  • October 2020: SanDisk SSD hard drive data recovery: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/sandisk-ssd-data-recovery/
  • August 2020: Page about recovering the data from liquid and water damaged phones: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-from-liquid-and-water-damaged-phones/
  • July 2020: Two new Data Clinic data recovery locations in the UK – Leicester and Belfast: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/new-data-clinic-office-locations-belfast-leicester/
  • June 2020: Data recovery from a broken and smashed iPhone 8: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-on-a-damaged-iphone-8/
  • May 2020: Data recovery from Macbook’s with a soldered SSD and T2 security chip: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/soldered-macbook-ssds-and-the-t2-security-chip/
  • May 2020: Examples of when hard drive recovery and external hard drive recovery is necessary: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-drive-recovery-blog/
  • March 2020: Teardown and data recovery of a water damaged iPhone XS: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/recovering-data-from-a-water-damaged-iphone-xs/
  • February 2020: Recovering data from iPhones with error code 14: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/recovering-data-from-iphone-error-14/
  • January 2020: Data Recovery from SSDs that use the TRIM feature: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-and-the-ssd-trim-feature/
  • January 2020: Data Clinic hard drive, phone, RAID server and CCTV recovery in Bolton, Blackburn and Bradford: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-bolton-blackburn-and-bradford/
  • December 2019: New Page – Bitlocker data recovery: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-from-bitlocker-encrypted-volumes/
  • December 2019: Huawei phones hanging and not booting: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/huawei-phones-hang-on-loading-screen/
  • November 2019: Phone Data Recovery Questions: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/phone-data-recovery-questions/
  • October 2019: Western Digital WD My Passport hard drive data recovery in London: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/wd-my-passport-data-recovery/
  • August 2019: Is it possible to recover data from a phone after a factory reset?: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-on-a-phone-after-a-factory-reset/
  • July 2019: Data Recovery Q&A – forensic data recovery, application errors, water damage and CCTV image recovery: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-qa-july-2019/
  • June 2019: New Page – Advanced data recovery solutions for digital forensics examiners: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/digital-forensic-data-recovery/
    June 2019: Video walkthru of the repair and recovery of a water damaged iPhone:
    https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/water-damaged-iphone-repair-and-recovery-video-walkthru/
  • May 2019: Submitted data recovery questions from customers: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/help-with-data-recovery/
  • April 2019: Data Clinic’s mobile phone data recovery services – chip off: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-clinics-chip-off-data-recovery-for-phones/
  • April 2019: Data recovery on Dell XPS8300 and Buffalo Ministation HD-PCFU3 series hard drives: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/dell-and-buffalo-data-recovery/
  • March 2019: Hard drive data recovery enquiries in our London and Birmingham data recovery locations: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-in-our-london-and-birmingham-locations/
  • January 2019: What to do when you see the error “The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable”: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/the-file-or-directory-is-corrupted-and-unreadable/
  • January 2019: Recovering data from Apple Fusion hard drives: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/fusion-hard-drive-recovery/
  • December 2018: Hard drive recovery enquiries from our London office on Lombard Street: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/london-data-recovery-advice/
  • November 2018: External hard drive recovery – examples of faulty drive problems: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/external-hard-drive-recovery/
  • October 2018: Examples and UK data recovery centre locations: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-lab-locations/
  • September 2018: Example data recovery hard drive and phone enquiries: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-lab-locations/
  • August 2018: New local hard drive data recovery service pages for August: Salford and Barnsley
  • July 2018: New local data recovery service pages for July: Walsall, Nuneaton, Sefton, Rotherham.
  • June 2018: New local data recovery service pages for June: Fife, Birkenhead, Derby.
  • May 2018: Data recovery enquiries from Glasgow, Manchester and London: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-drive-recovery-in-london-manchester-and-glasgow/
  • April 2018: ‘Equipment Interference’ – how the government can legally hack your devices: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/equipment-interference-how-the-government-can-legally-hack-your-data/
  • April 2018: Data Recovery Mistakes – clueless local IT shops and computer companies try their hand at data recovery with disastrous effects: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-mistakes/
  • March 2018: Hard Disk Error and SMART Errors – what to do to rescue your files: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-disk-smart-errors/
  • February 2018: Data recovery advice on G-RAID and WD MyBook Duo NAS hard drives: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/network-attached-storage-data-recovery/
  • February 2018: Solved – Problems with hard drives that are not initialised: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/unknown-disk-not-initialised-hard-drive-problem-solved/
  • January 2018: Cookies – Protect your online privacy using this handy guide and factsheet: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/cookies-a-privacy-factsheet/
  • January 2018: Serious security flaw in some WD My Cloud NAS hard drives uncovered: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/serious-security-flaw-in-some-wd-nas-hard-drives/
  • November 2017: Safe Mode and System32 data recovery problems discussed: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/safe-mode-and-system32-boot-problems/
  • November 2017: Recovering data from hard drives and phones with faulty or broken PCBs: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/pcb-problems-with-phones-and-hard-drives/
  • October 2017: Unresponsive phones – examples of phones in need of data recovery from across the country: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/unresponsive-phones-need-data/
  • October 2017: Recovering the data from a hard drive with orphaned files in Harrogate and dealing with bad sectors to rescue files in Loughborough: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-drive-recovery-qa-october-2017/
  • Sept 2017: Need to recover data from hard drive or mobile phone?: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/need-to-recover-data-from-hard-drive-mobile-phone/
  • Sept 2017: Finding data recovery services for phones: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/find-data-recovery-services-phones/
  • Sept 2017: Data recovery required from hard drives and phones: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-drive-and-phone-problems/
  • Aug 2017: Hard drives not showing up – light remaining on: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-qa-august-2017/
  • Aug 2017: Advice regarding unresponsive hard drives and phones: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/help-unresponsive-harddrive-phone/
  • July 2017: Unrecognised hard drives and phones and what to do about them: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/help-hard-drives-and-phones-not-recognised/
  • July 2017 – Broken iPhone and Samsung S6 smartphones plus a WD My Passport that is no longer responding: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-qa-july-2017-part-1/
  • June 2017 – A hard drive with bad media/SMART failure and another one with a “click of death”: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-qa-june-2017-part-2/
  • June 2017 – Common faults and data recovery enquiries on HTC, iPhone, Samsung, Nokia and Sony smart phones: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/phone-data-recovery/
  • May 2017 – Discusses 4 common types of hard drive fault, diagnosis and recovery options: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/4-common-hard-drive-faults/
  • Apr 2017 – Data Recovery Q&A Pt 2 – Retrieving files from an HP Proliant, an SSD and an iPhone stuck on the Apple logo: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-qa-april-2017-pt-2/
  • Apr 2017 – Data Recovery Q&A Pt 1 – Answers to several data recovery questions: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/april-2017-qa-part-1/
  • Mar 2017 – How much does data recovery cost?: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/how-much-does-data-recovery-cost/
  • Mar 2017 Pt1 – Help with a problematic iMac, a beeping hard drive and a Samsung S6, plus more: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/march-2017-data-recovery-qa-part-1/
  • Feb 2017, Hard drive and phone recovery Q&A – a BIG post – perhaps you have a similar problem to these?: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-qa-feb-2017-pt-1/
  • Jan 2017 Pt2, Help with RAW file systems, dropped external hard drives and a LaCie FW800 running RAID 5: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-drive-help-and-advice-jan-2017-part-2/
  • Jan 2017 Pt1, Recovering data from Samsung S2 and Nexus 4 phones, plus CCTV recovery from a Floureon system: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-help-and-advice-pt1-jan-2017/
  • Dec 2016 Pt2, Christmas and New Year opening times: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/christmas-new-year-opening-times-2016/
  • Dec 2016 Pt1, G-Technology NAS with undetected drives, recovering deleted Whatsapp and SMS texts, and retrieving data from a Sun Microsystems RAID 5 server: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-help-and-advice-december-2016-part-1/
  • Nov 2016 Pt2, The pitfalls of using a data recovery program that overwrites data!: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-help-advice-november-2016/
  • Nov 2016 P1, The dangers to data of using a warranty repair service and Easy Recovery software: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/beware-of-warranty-repairs-and-data-recovery-software/
  • Oct 2016 Pt3, A selection of enquiries regarding retrieving the data from faulty phones and hard drives: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/problems-requiring-data-recovery/
  • Oct 2016 Pt2, Free data recovery evaluations, phones with cracked screens, hard drives that won’t copy data: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-drive-phones-qa/
  • Oct 2016 Pt1, Is it possible to recover data from a hard drive with a scratched surface?: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/scratched-hard-drive/
  • Sept 2016 Pt2, Various types of phone fault and data recovery options: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/phone-recovery-questions-help-and-advice/
  • Sep 2016 Pt1, Data loss after an upgrade to Windows 10, and a hard bricked Samsung Galaxy S5: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/help-with-data-loss/
  • Aug 2016 Pt3, Is is possible to recover files and folders after a factory reset ?: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/how-does-a-factory-reset-affect-your-data-files/
  • Aug 2016 Pt2, Hard drive dropped – now hums, beeps and is unresponsive: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/humming-beeping-hard-drives-not-recognised/
  • Aug 2016 Pt1, An iPhone with the ‘red screen of death’ and an unresponsive SSD: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/help-and-advice-ssds-and-iphones/
  • Data Recovery by Data Clinic LtdJuly 2016 Pt2, Various phone problems – Help and advice: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/phone-data-recovery-example-enquries/
  • July 2016 Pt1, Problems on Samsung EVO 840 series SSD hard drives: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/samsung-evo-840-ssd-faults-beware/
  • June 2016 Pt3, Data Recovery from External Hard Drives – Help and Advice: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/external-hard-drive-data-recovery-help-and-advice/
  • June 2016 Pt2, A dropped Western Digital Ultra hard drive, and WhatsApp/SMS message retrieval for use in court: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/help-advice-dropped-wd-passport-and-recovering-smswhatsapp-texts/
  • June 2016 Pt1, Data recovery advice for owners of LG G4 smartphones that are failing to boot: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/lg-g4-smartphone-failed-not-booting/

> For more Help and Advice pages go to The Archive

Known Issues & Case Studies

Data Clinic spinstand

Data Clinic staff work on recovering the data from a severely damaged hard drive using a Spinstand in the clean room.

As the UK’s largest data recovery company we see lots of broken hard drives, servers and mobile phones that come in for recovery each week. Because we see so many faulty data storage devices, we are often aware of apparent problems early and in addition to documenting them, can identify ways to get around these problems and recover the data. Historically, Data Clinic were one of the first companies in the world to discover the firmware fault on the Seagate 7200.11 series of hard drives, and the serious Fujitsu MPG firmware fault several years before that.

On this page we’ve highlighted a few of the recent known issues we’ve seen with some current hard drives, as well as some interesting RAID and NAS data recovery case studies.

Current Known Issues

  • Data loss problems on Samsung EVO SSD hard drives
  • Western Digital Drives with USB interfaces on the hard drive’s motherboard
  • Problems noticed with Seagate STxxxxDM001 series hard drives
  • Issues with current Z7K500 series Hitachi/HGST hard drives
  • Picture loss when upgrading Mac iPhoto and Photo Libraries.

> Information Link: Why It’s Not Possible to Repair A Faulty Hard Drive

RAID and NAS Data Recovery Case Studies

Due to it’s complexities, RAID and NAS devices provide some of the most interesting and challenging data recovery work that we do.

Samsung SRD-1670D CCTV Recovery (Ok, so this is a CCTV case study !)

Thecus N7700 RAID 6 NAS
Netgear 4 disk NAS
Netgear server running RAID 5
Seagate 6 disk RAID 5 NAS
HP Proliant ML370 Series RAID 5
Dell Poweredge MD1000 series RAID 5
Dell FreeNAS 6 Disk RAID 0 running ZFS

Information Link: Three Tips To Avoid Data Loss When Your RAID / NAS / Server Fails

Data Clinic information archiveThe Archive

As we are adding information to this site all the time we have developed an archive area that contains lots of useful links to articles we’ve written since 2002.

The archive contains both recent and older information on all aspects of hard drives and recovery that we don’t have room for elsewhere on the site.

Go to The Archive.

For an Immediate Quote
Call FREEPHONE
0800 151 2207

or, Request a Callback

Data Clinic Reviews

Data Clinic Ltd - Manchester
Data Clinic Ltd - Manchester
4.5
Based on 136 reviews
See all reviewsWrite a review
Abby Farndon
Abby Farndon
10:29 29 Apr 22
Honestly could not fault the customer service of this company! So friendly and helpful on the phone, they arranged dpd to collect my water damaged phone from my place of the work the very next day of my initial enquiry.The following day they contacted me to let me know they had received it which was very reassuring and a lovely touch.They managed to restore all of my data which I was so thrilled about as I honestly thought I would never get my sons baby photos back. They put the data on a memory stick and sent it by next day delivery. Amazing service and so thankful for all their help!! Would definitely recommend this company!!
Nilesh Ruda
Nilesh Ruda
16:21 27 Apr 22
Thank you and your team for a Brilliant service. You have saved our holiday memories.Highly recommend service. Excellent communication and Very fast turnaround
Raj beniwal
Raj beniwal
22:31 06 Mar 22

LONDON
68 Lombard Street
EC3V 9LJ
Tel: 0207 111 0964

New London House
EC3R 7LP
Tel: 0207 111 0964

BELFAST
The Mount, Belfast BT6 8DD
Tel: 0282 024 7021

BIRMINGHAM
11 St Pauls Square, Birmingham B3 1RB
Tel: 0121 629 0436

BRISTOL
Castlemead, Bristol BS1 3AG
Tel: 0117 322 6585

EDINBURGH
St Andrews Square, Edinburgh EH2 2AF
Tel: 0131 242 0037

GLASGOW
Tay House, 300 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 4JR
Tel: 0141 301 1677

LEEDS
Building 3, City West Business Park, Gelderd Road, Leeds, LS12 6LN
Tel: 0113 254 9741

LEICESTER
3rd Floor, St. George's House, 6 St George's Way, Leicester LE1 1QZ
Tel: 0116 319 0115

LIVERPOOL
Horton House, Exchange Street East, Liverpool, L2 3PF
Tel: 0151 268 5255

MANCHESTER
The Pavilions, Bridge Hall Lane, Bury, BL9 7NX
Tel: 0161 761 0620

NEWCASTLE
116 Quayside, Newcastle, NE1 3DY
Tel: 0191 447 1227

NORTHAMPTON
400 Pavilion Drive, Northampton, NN4 7PA
Tel: 01604 529356

SHEFFIELD
The Balance, 2 Pinfold Street, Sheffield, S1 2GU
Tel: 0114 208 6027

SOUTHAMPTON
Basepoint, Andersons Road, Southampton SO14 5FE
Tel: 0114 208 6027


(c) 2020 Data Clinic Ltd - Data Recovery Services. Click to visit Data Clinic's DATA RECOVERY homepage.