Devices · spinning disks
Four parts break on a spinning drive: heads, spindle motor, circuit board, firmware. None of them get better while a machine sits there retrying, and it is the retrying that scores a surface which could still have been imaged. Cut the power and leave it off, wherever in Reading it sits. Which of the four went is a bench question, the answer to it costs nothing, and a single drive is £300 + VAT — fixed in writing before any chargeable work starts.
An engineer answers, and looking is free
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| What you are seeing | What is likely wrong | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| Drive not accessible, and Windows wants to format it first | Windows cannot read the file table, so the volume shows as RAW. What was written to it is still there | Cut the power. Turn down every format offer |
| Data error (cyclic redundancy check) | A sector failed its checksum; the surface underneath is usually going | Stop the copy. Image the whole disk instead |
| 0x8007045D — the request failed, I/O device error | The disk stops answering commands inside the timeout window | Switch it off and note the full model number |
| Windows detected a hard disk problem | A SMART attribute has gone past its threshold | Image all of it. No cherry-picking files |
| 0x800701E3 — a hardware error on the device | The disk drops off the bus part-way through a copy | No further retries. This is bench work |
| SMART Status BAD, Backup and Replace | The drive's own self-test has already written it off | Do not boot that machine from it again |
| 0GB reported, or a model name that is nonsense | The service area cannot be read, so the drive misreports itself | Bench-level firmware work |
A case number goes on your device the day it reaches us, and an engineer then finds the real fault — free, and before anything else happens. You are told plainly what will come back and what will not, with one fixed figure in writing beside it. Nothing chargeable starts until you have read that and said yes.
Nothing is repaired before a copy exists. Your disk goes on a hardware imager that pulls at whatever pace the mechanism will take, and sets the awkward regions aside for a last pass instead of labouring at them. Work starts when that image is safe.
Heads are taken from a donor matched to your drive. A spindle that has seized gets freed. Where the board itself has failed, its ROM chip moves across to the replacement.
None of that touches your disk — it happens on the image. The file system is rebuilt inside that copy, and you see a list of what came back before you see an invoice.
You see the file list first, then decide. Nothing is invoiced until you have said yes, and on most jobs there is no fee at all if the data does not come back. What we pull off goes onto media bought in for your job, and the postage home is ours. The case stays open on the bench until you tell us the files open on your own machine.
How often do drives actually fail? Backblaze's Drive Stats is the only substantial published set of numbers: 1.36% annualised across roughly 344,000 disks the firm ran through 2025, against 1.55% for the year before. Your own drive, sitting under a desk in Woodley or Caversham, has nothing like that life — knocked, unplugged mid-write, carried about, and its SMART data never once read. Take 1.36% as a floor.
Two heads had gone, and the drive had been standing still for weeks before it reached us. Donor heads matched to the model went on, and 96% came off the very first imaging pass. Ledgers, invoices and years of family photographs were checked on screen and posted home.
Usually not. Your files live on the platters, and clicking says nothing about the platters. What it says is that the heads have lost track of the servo pattern they steer by. Fit donor heads, take the surfaces slowly, and the greater part of what a clicking drive holds normally comes off it. Each further attempt to power it up cuts that share down.
Usually. Tell us what was done and who did it. Ordinary room air carries dust, and dust that has settled on a platter can push a job past the point where the no-fee terms we offer on most work still apply. Nothing is priced until an engineer has looked at the surfaces.
£300 + VAT for a single drive. The look before it costs nothing, the figure comes in writing, and nothing chargeable begins until you say yes. Logical faults sit at the bottom of the band; donor parts and bench hours in filtered air push it up. On most jobs there is no fee if nothing comes back.
Yes. IDE, early SATA and SAS reach the bench most weeks. All that changes with age is the adapter it sits on and the imager we put behind it.
You pay nothing for the look. What comes back is a list — the files that opened, the ones that did not, and one fixed figure to finish the job. Leave it switched off until you have that in writing.