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
      • Surface Pro Data Recovery
      • 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

Recovering data from hard disk drives containing bad sectors

Bad Sector Problems

Bad sectors are areas of the hard disk that become unreadable. All hard disk drives are will develop bad sectors eventually, normally sectors that go bad are flagged by the hard disk and not used any further, but if you have valuable data or files that reside on sectors that become bad sectors, you will not be able to access your data or files correctly.

Symptoms of Hard Drives with Bad Sectors

The drive may appear to run slowly, specific files may take a long time to access or be completely inaccessible. In severe cases, the entire disk may become inaccessible. Click here for more information on common Windows error messages that often appear when a drive has bad sectors.

Bad Sector Causes

Every type of hard disk is prone to develop bad sectors ”naturally” but this is not always the case. Harsh operating conditions (eg. high temperatures, vibration etc) can cause hard disks to develop a large number of bad sectors very quickly.

Recovering Data from Hard Disk Drives with Bad Sectors

Bad sector severity can vary widely from disk to disk. Sometimes, just a small area of a hard disk can be affected. Problems like this are often easy to bypass and are not often noticed. The real problems come when the number of bad sectors on a hard drive have got so large that performance is affected: disk access is slow and files and folders can disappear of become inaccessible. Once this has happened it’s time to assess the value of the data on the drive. If your data is valuable you will need to:
1. Disconnect the drive a leave it powered off. Bad sectors often spread very quickly across a disk, but no further harm can be done if the drive is powered off.
2. Recovering data from hard drives with this number of bad sectors requires hardware and not software (which will often make matters worse by stressing the heads of the hard drive and eventually causing complete drive failure and loss of data).
3. Call us on 0871 977 2525 – we can help.

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 141 reviews
See all reviewsWrite a review
Stewart Whitworth
Stewart Whitworth
12:42 28 Jun 22
Whilst Data Clinic were not able to retrieve the data from 1 of the 3 drives I sent to them - they were very easy to work with, accomodated my requests allowing for a very flexible recovery process (I dropped off the drives in person and provided an obscure drive type for the recovered data which they were perfectly happy with). When I asked why the last drive was unrecoverable, they explained with lots of detail, and of course I was not charged for said drive.I've learnt my lesson and hopefully won't ever need a recovery service again, but if I do I know who to go to!
Brian Greco
Brian Greco
13:38 09 Jun 22
3 years of my lifes' work and photos saved because of the amazing professionals at this company. My iPhone XS Max got stuck in a "boot loop" with a nearly full 512GB of storage. Most of the internet said there was no hope for this Error 14/1110: but Michelle, Elliot, and the team at Data Clinic said otherwise. Amazing friendly personable customer coordination from Michelle including arrangement of emergency service for which I flew into Manchester to the main lab. Elliot was patient, capable, and helped get the job DONE! I now have my phone not only backed up to an SSD for the data itself, but my phone is working as it was, and has updated software to the newest iOS. I cannot express my gratitude enough for the capable professionals who I was able to trust here at Data Clinic. I truly believe this is the best tech service I have ever experienced. Worth every penny and grateful for the invaluable benefit of my memories being restored. THANK YOU! Brian from USA based in Turkey

Nationwide
Recovery Centers


Learn More

Free Advice
and Consultation


Learn More

Proven
Success Rate


Learn More

Recovery possibilities:
Data Clinic are often able to correctly reconstruct and recover data that occupies bad sectors, by using our in-house data recovery hardware tool “Diskmaster”

Do Not:
Under no circumstances should you run a repair utility such as Scandisk or Chkdsk. This software is unable to repair bad sector damage and there is a very high probability that the files you are trying to recover will become unrecoverable.

What should I do?:
Call the Data Clinic and talk your problem through with us on 0871 977 2525, or fill out our contact form and we”ll call you back

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.