The fault · noises coming from the drive
Turn it off and leave it like that. In all likelihood, when the noise starts, the data on the platters is still good; anything lost from then on goes to the retries. Once a head loses track of itself, it will find its way back to the ramp, launch across the disk, find nothing, and come back to launch itself again, and again, for however long the plug stays in. Each try is another chance to touch the platter. Pull the plug and it stops trying. The first look costs nothing, a single drive is £300 + VAT once you have the figure in writing, and most of these go home with the greater part of the disk on new media.
An engineer answers, and looking is free
0800 6890668
| What you notice | What is likely wrong | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| A tick about once a second that won't stop | The arm steers by servo marks laid down at the factory. It can't find them, so it returns to the ramp and tries again | Cut its power |
| A thin beep, usually from a small 2.5" portable | Silence, no motion: a seized spindle bearing or heads stuck on the platter surface | Don't tap it, don't shake it |
| A harsh rasp, or a grind | The head is down on the platter and causing damage as it runs | Every second of running costs files |
| A short chirp at each start-up | Calibration failing, most often after a fall | Switch it off and let it rest |
| A few clicks, then silence | It gives up, resets and goes through the same sequence all over again | Unplug it and break the loop |
| It only clicks on certain files | One of the heads has gone, or one band of the platter has been damaged | Stop copying and have it imaged |
A case number is assigned to your device when we receive it. An engineer then finds the real fault (free) before anything else occurs; you will be advised clearly of what will be returned and what will not, along with a single written price. Charges cannot begin until you have read this and accepted.
The mechanism and the platter surfaces are inspected before the drive receives any power. Where a noisy drive does have to run, it is monitored by an engineer and given seconds at a time. It will never be allowed to run unattended.
The failed head assembly is removed and replaced with a donor assembly matching your drive's model. A spindle that had become locked is freed. Heads resting against a platter are lifted clear without being dragged along it. Once this is complete, the drive is asked for one thing: a complete image, and nothing else.
A hardware imager copies very carefully. It steps around whatever stalls, banks the simple sectors first, then comes back for the difficult areas until it has copied everything the disk will allow. After that each step is done from the image, and nothing is ever written back to your disk.
You look at the file list first and make a decision about what to do. We will never invoice anything until you have said yes, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. All of the information that we recover will be put on new media purchased by us specifically for this job, and our company pays the cost of postage back to you. The case stays open on the bench until you tell us the files open on your own machine.
This whole page boils down to one word: stop. A head flies a few nanometres off a platter spinning at thousands of revolutions per minute; nothing engineered like that repairs itself. On the noisy drives that reach this bench, how quickly someone got to the plug is usually the whole difference between everything back and a partial list. First get a quote from us, by phone or with the quote form, then post the drive to the Oxford intake lab or drop it off there (no appointment needed, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm); an engineer opens it the day it arrives, and a written figure comes back to you before anything costs money.
A Tilehurst shop sent in one that ticked every second or so and had five years' worth of takings stored on it. Donor stack number two held, the image was given as long as it needed, and the accounts were reopened; the VAT return has yet to be filed.
Probably not. The click means the heads are missing their track, and it gives no indication of what condition the platters under them (and the data) are in. Generally, donor heads and a very slow, patient image will restore most of a damaged disk. The real damage occurs during the minutes it runs after the noise begins.
It is both pointless and damaging. This advice is older than every drive still in service. When you cool a sealed unit, two bad things occur at once: the metal parts contract (shrink) by different amounts, and moisture condenses where liquid should never be. Then when the unit warms back up to room temperature, you've got corroded contacts on top of all the problems you had before, so now there are two faults to deal with rather than just one.
The factory writes servo marks onto every platter, and then the arm goes looking for them. When it finds no servo mark, the arm returns to the ramp and sweeps again; this cycle, repeated, is the sound you can hear. However, the sound gives no way of telling what is wrong: a head out of alignment, a failing preamp, or contact marks on the surface (through a metal casing, all three sound alike). Separating them means having the cover off on a bench.
None of this helps. However many requests the program sends, each and every one must go back through the failing heads, which only causes further wear.
There is no charge for the look. You then receive a list of the files that opened, those that did not, and a fixed amount to complete the job. Keep it switched off until you have received that in writing.