The Archive - General Hard Drive and Data Recovery Archive

The Archive contains lots of information about hard drives and data recovery that we’ve been compiling since 2002. Whilst you’ll find up to date information about current issues and problems throughout the rest of the site, the archive contains pages that we feel are still relevant but don’t really have a place anywhere else.

Help and Advice (Older Pages)

For the most recent hard drive and data recovery help and advice pages to here: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/known-issues-case-studies/

May 2016 Pt3, Advice for retrieving information from an external Mac HDD, and DVR CCTV system, and an iPhone 6: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/recovering-data-from-a-mac-dvr-cctv-and-an-iphone-6/
May 2016 Pt2, Help and Advice with Cyclic Redundancy Check errors and another unresponsive external hard drive that clicks: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/help-and-advice-with-cyclic-redundancy-check-errors/
May 2016 Pt1, A brief introduction to Tor and how it protects your browsing: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/an-introduction-to-tor/
Apr 2016 Pt3, Help, Advice and Recommendations to a company running a 7 disk RAID6 server with 2 drives failed and no backups…: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/help-and-advice-supporting-a-raid-6-with-2-failed-drives/
Apr 2016 P2, Information, help, advice and recommendations to users with unresponsive beeping hard drives: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/wd-my-passport-beeps/
Apr 2016 Pt1, Android 101 – The Definitive Guide to Common Problems on Android Devices: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/android-101-the-definitive-guide-to-common-problems-on-android-devices/
Mar 2016 Pt3, WhatsApp – What’s It All About? – a closer look at the world’s most popular messaging app: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/whatsapp-whats-it-all-about/
Mar 2016 Pt2, A drowned mobile phone, a keyboard accident leads to a broken disk and an unresponsive WD My Passport: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/help-and-advice-keyboard-knock-creates-unresponsive-hard-drive/
Mar 2016 Pt1, 3 Portable Hard Drives, 3 Different Problems: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/portable-hard-drives-help-and-advice-problem-page-march-2016/
Apr 2016 Pt3, Help, Advice and Recommendations to a company running a 7 disk RAID6 server with 2 drives failed and no backups…: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/help-and-advice-supporting-a-raid-6-with-2-failed-drives/
Apr 2016 P2, Information, help, advice and recommendations to users with unresponsive beeping hard drives: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/wd-my-passport-beeps/
Apr 2016 Pt1, Android 101 – The Definitive Guide to Common Problems on Android Devices: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/android-101-the-definitive-guide-to-common-problems-on-android-devices/
Mar 2016 Pt3, WhatsApp – What’s It All About? – a closer look at the world’s most popular messaging app: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/whatsapp-whats-it-all-about/
Mar 2016 Pt2, A drowned mobile phone, a keyboard accident leads to a broken disk and an unresponsive WD My Passport: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/help-and-advice-keyboard-knock-creates-unresponsive-hard-drive/
Mar 2016 Pt1, 3 Portable Hard Drives, 3 Different Problems: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/portable-hard-drives-help-and-advice-problem-page-march-2016/
Feb 2016 Pt3, Learn how we use ultrasonic cleaning to recover the data from submersed phones and hard drives: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/ultrasonic-cleaning-for-phone-hard-drive-data-recovery/
Feb 2016 Pt2, A DIY head change on a hard drive, more broken phones and hard drives: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/help-and-advice-a-diy-hdd-head-change-and-more/
Feb 2016 Pt1, Dell RAID servers – hard drive error status codes explained: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/raid-hdd-status-codes-on-dell-servers/
Jan 2016 Pt4, A troubleshooting guide for when you lose access to a shared hard drive / folder over a network: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/troubleshooting-a-mapped-drive-problem/
Jan 2016 Pt3, Rescuing the data from flooded PCs and a NAS with a faulty chassis case: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/helpadvice-flood-damaged-hard-drives-readynas-dead-chassis/
Jan 2016 Pt2, Recovering the data from a vandalised CCTV recorder: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/vandalised-cctv-system/
Jan 2016 Pt1, Recover data from a phone dropped in water, retrieving deleted text messages and chats: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/phone-dropped-into-water-recovering-deleted-messages/
Dec 2015 Pt3, Mac hard drive mounts OK but crashes Finder: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/external-hard-drive-mounts-but-crashes-finder/
Dec 2015 Pt2, Help and advice for users of a Buffalo LinkStation Duo RAID 0 running in emergency mode: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/help-and-advice-a-buffalo-linkstation-in-emergency-mode/
Dec 2015 Pt1, Help and advice with a burning smell from a hard drive and a re-formatted Buffalo TeraStation: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/burning-smell-from-a-hard-drive-a-re-formatted-terastation/
Nov 2015 Pt3, Problems with Western Digital WD10 hard drives and an Iomega RAID 5 NAS issue: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/help-and-advice-iomega-raid-nas-and-wd-hard-drives/
Nov 2015 Pt2, A user of a G|RAID NAS dual disk RAID 0 loses access to their data: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/problem-with-a-graid-dual-drive-storage-system/
Nov 2015 Pt1, Smartphone Problem Special ! – An unresponsive Samsung S6, iPhone 5s and Nokia Lumia 925: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/getting-data-from-unresponsive-smartphones/
Oct 2015 Pt4, Wet phones not working, a crashed Buffalo Ministation and a hard drive that needs formatting: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-qa-october-2015-part-4/
Oct 2015 Pt3, An ill fated attempt at DIY data recovery – here’s why some common things people try to fix their hard drives don’t work: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/broken-hard-drive/
Oct 2015 Pt2, A faulty Seagate Barracuda, a water damaged Samsung Galaxy S2, an unresponsive Dell Poweredge and a ‘Did You Know’ security feature on iPhones: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-qa-october-2015-part-2/
Oct 2015 Pt1, Identifying the problem and retrieving the data from a generic unresponsive hard drive: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-drive-help-and-advice-an-unresponsive-hard-drive/
Sept 2015 Pt4, Lost pics on an LG phone running Android and a legal case requiring the recovery of deleted text messages from a Samsung Note 3: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/mobile-phone-recovery-qa/
Sept 2015 Pt3, Looks at faults on older IDE PATA hard drives and a Samsung mobile phone issue: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/old-ide-pata-hard-drive-recovery-qa/
Sept 2015 Pt2, Discusses various user problems with Seagate and Western Digital portable hard drives: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/help-with-hard-drives-qa-september-2015/
Sept 2015 Pt1, Issues with a Dell Poweredge 840 and a Buffalo TS-XL/R5 NAS running RAID 5, plus ACER Extensa 5635Z laptop HDD errors: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-drive-help-recovery-questionsanswers-sept-2015-pt1/
August 2015 Pt2, Several problems with external / portable hard drives and a laptop that refuses to start: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-drive-help-data-recovery-questions-and-answers-august-2015-part-2/
August 2015, Hybrid hard drive problems and issues with a Thecus NAS: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-drive-help-data-recovery-questions-and-answers-august-2015/
July 2015, Dropped hard drives, Mac problems, RAID 5 trouble and smashed iPhones: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-enquiries-july-2015/
June 2015: Spilt liquid on a laptop, missing images on a CCTV system, 2 instances of deleted photos: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-enquiries-weekly-roundup-june-2015/

The Causes of Hard Drive Failure

https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-disk-drive-data-loss-ONE/
https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-disk-drive-data-loss-TWO/
https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-disk-drive-data-loss-THREE/

Why, What and How ?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of external hard drives? https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/advantages-disadvantages-external-hard-disk-drives-usb-firewire
Why do hard drives tick ? https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-ticking-hard-disk-head-problem/
What is a head crash ? https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/what-is-a-head-crash-hard-disk-drive-information/
How to disable Scandisk and Chkdsk http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/disable-scandisk-chkdsk/
Why use of Scandisk and Chkdsk should be avoided https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/scandisk-chkdsk-disk-checking-repair-software/
What are hard drive CRC errors ? https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-disk-crc/
How bad sector repair programs work (flow chart) https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-disk-regenerator-repair-flow-chart/

Older Stuff

(Still relevant, though no longer updated)

Hard Drives From Yesterday…

Maxtor hard drive recovery https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/maxtor-hard-disk-recovery/
Retrieving data from Maxtor DiamondMax 22 hard drives https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-maxtor-diamondmax-22/
Repair and recovery of a firmware fault on a Maxtor N40P hard drive https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-case-study-maxtor-n40p/
Quantum hard drives https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/quantum-hard-disk-data-recovery/
Recovering data from an ATA password protected Fujitsu drive https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-case-study-fujitsu-mhu2100at/
Same thing on an ATA password protected Seagate Momentus https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-case-study-seagate-momentus-5400/
The old IBM Deskstar https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/data-recovery-ibm-deskstar-hard-disk-drive/

Miscellaneous

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

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

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