The fault · a drop or a knock
Leave it unplugged. Whether the drive was turning at the moment it fell decides almost everything that follows. Switched off, a hard disk takes a fall far better than people assume: the heads are parked off to one side and the chassis absorbs the landing. Spinning, there is no margin at all: platters at 5,400 or 7,200rpm, a head riding nanometres above them and nowhere for it to go. Which is why the impulse to plug it in and check is the one to resist. After a fall, the first spin-up is often the last clean pass the disk has left in it, and a test spends it. Diagnosis here in Reading costs nothing, a single drive is £300 + VAT, and the figure is in writing before any of it begins.
An engineer answers, and looking is free
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| What you notice | What is likely wrong | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| Clicking ever since it went over | The impact knocked the heads out of line, and it keeps going back to try again | Do not switch it on |
| One beep after the knock | Nothing is turning: heads flat down on the platter, or a bearing that has seized | Shaking it achieves nothing |
| The computer no longer detects it | Heads down on the surface, a spindle motor that has stopped, or damage to board or socket | Have it looked at rather than retried |
| All right at first, worse since | Light damage, getting deeper with each hour of running | Move while it still answers |
| An SSD or a stick that stopped on impact | Nothing moves inside one of these, so it is the board, a joint or a connector | Repair work at board level |
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.
An engineer goes over the drive by hand first; only then does anything get powered. A head knocked out of line can be down on the surface within one revolution of the first spin-up. Where a drive does have to be turned, it gets a single rotation, watched.
The damaged head stack comes out and a donor matched to your drive takes its place. A seized spindle is freed, any head sitting on a platter is lifted clear, and repairs are made to boards and sockets.
Everything that reads cleanly comes off first and is banked somewhere safe. Only after that are the sectors ruined by the impact attempted at all.
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.
What the datasheets show: notebook mechanisms of 2.5" are usually rated somewhere near ~350–400G while running and about ~1,000G once parked, while certain 3.5" desktop units, platters turning, are quoted as low as ~30G. Shutting a machine down before you move it costs nothing, and no other advice on this page is worth as much.
It went over as the bags were being packed down, and it had begun clicking before the bench ever saw it. Three years of paid work sat on that drive, the morning's ceremony included. A matched donor stack went in, two days went on the copy, and every gallery came back.
Usually, as long as nobody has already chanced their arm with it. Nobody is trying to make the mechanism serviceable again; it needs to hold together for one slow read and no longer. In goes a donor head stack of the right model and batch, the imaging is taken gently, and most of the surface generally comes off.
More than anything else on this page. Powered down, the same fall is a much smaller problem. A head riding nanometres over a spinning platter has no room to give, and it can score the coating on the way. So leave it unplugged.
Not often. With nothing moving inside, the damage falls on the board: a torn-off connector, a split solder joint. That is bench electronics, and it is repairable. Your files live on flash chips, and those usually come through the fall untouched.
Almost certainly. Knock a head or a bearing a fraction out of true and every spin-up takes it a little further. The fall decided the outcome; each start since has brought it nearer.
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.