Physical Data Recovery

When a hard drive suffers a head crash, electronics damage, or spindle motor problem, these are typically classified as physical failures. The most common symptom of a physical failure with the read-write heads is the dreaded "Click of Death".

Physical failures are some of the most complex problems associated with hard drives, and will nearly double the cost of the recovery when compared to a logical failure. In order for your data to be recovered successfully, it's important that we are able to get your hard drive functional so that we can generate an image or cloned copy of it. With physical failures, this could mean we need to swap out the head assembly. With electronics failures, we will need to repair the components on the logic board, or we will need to transfer vital components to a new working board. In the event a spindle motor has failed, we will need to move the platters from your drive over to the case of another drive, all while maintaining exact alignment between the platters. With only microns of tolerance, the process is not easy, even for experienced data recovery technicians. Many customers express that they don't want their drive repaired, they just want the data. However, some level of repair is necessary so that we can access the data. We don't ever recommend you use the drive again, it is only a temporary repair that is needed so that we can generate a cloned copy of your drive. We then perform a logical recovery from the cloned copy we created.

Data recovery on physically failed hard drives, typically requires a Class-100 or better clean room. Simply stated, a Class100 Clean Room maintains exceptional air purity, and contains less than 100 airborne particles larger than 0.5 microns in each cubic foot of air. This is vital in protecting sensitive internal components of hard drives, especially since the read/write head floats just a few microns above the platters which are spinning at 7200RPM. The smallest speck of dust can be like a car slamming head on into a tree. Anytime a hard drive is having an invasive procedure performed on it, a Class100 clean room or better is needed to prevent further damage or data loss.

If your drive has suffered a mechanical failure, chances are you are going to hear unusual sounds coming from the drive. These may be clicks, beeps, even "musical" notes may be heard. Here are some examples of the sounds you may hear: Head Crash, Bad Head, Bad Head 2, Bad Head 3, Slow Spindle Motor, Head Stuck To Platter. If you hear anything like this at all, do not reapply power to the drive. If the data is important call us at 1-800-717-8974.