The external hard drive will only give you hints as to what went wrong with it, such as a noise or a light or that it is no longer showing up (missing its usual drive letter), and after two decades these have become somewhat of a language. Here are the true interpretations for the common complaints brought to us in Glasgow, as the best next step relies solely on what statement your external drive makes.
The beeping (the typical complaint of portable LaCie and Seagate drives) is nearly never a speaker; it's almost always the spindle straining at the seized bearings or stuck heads. The beeping you hear is a mechanical failure. It requires proper mechanical work to fix, not just another cable. Invisible everywhere (Buffalo MiniStation speciality) is generally the USB bridge circuit. Many portable bridges also perform encryption using their own hardware, so the "dead" disk inside is healthy but unreadable without its own electronics.
A clicking hard disk means the internal heads (the "read/write arms") are damaged, same as any internal drive. A hard disk that asks to be formatted has probably had its file system damaged. This is often due to an interruption during a write operation, and the files underneath are typically intact. Each symptom gets a different repair strategy. They all have this in common: do not use the hard disk again.
The most obvious solution when a dead portable WD or Seagate has an external case is to open it up, then use some form of SATA dock to connect the (naked) disk directly to your computer. Unfortunately this will fail on newer models of both WD and Seagate, for several reasons: the USB control board is soldered to the drive itself; the encryption keys are embedded within that circuitry; and a "naked" WD or Seagate plugged into a SATA docking station will either read garbage, or read nothing at all. Worse, if you do end up opening the housing to access the internal components, the fact that you have removed the cover and/or damaged the retaining mechanism tells everyone involved that someone else was there previously.
Send the whole unit intact: the case, the cable (all of them). Finding out which side of the drive went down is the first thing our complimentary diagnostics will do; this is a complimentary diagnostic because guessing is how these drives get hurt.
That's what makes portability so great...and such an issue for portable drives. When you take your external with you, it lives in your bag (or on the edge of your desk). And if the drive is active (i.e., spinning) at the time you drop it, it almost always means that either the heads or the platters will be damaged. So if this happens to your drive and it then starts clicking or just won't spin, treat it as a wounded mechanical patient. Pad the bottom and top. Power it down immediately. Get one image of the data after repairing. Every time you read from the drive, be very gentle.
Above all else, the files people keep on externals (the photo archive, the business backup, the "everything folder") usually represent people's only copies; that is the reason why, in most cases, customers only get a bill when their lost data is recovered.
A single drive (either internal, external, laptop or desktop) will cost a fixed £300 + VAT, whatever the fault turns out to be. A chip-level exception would occur very rarely and will always be quoted in writing first. All jobs start with a free diagnostic. On all jobs you get what we quote: the price that you were told at the beginning of the process remains the price you pay. That price goes in writing before a single sector is read, and on most jobs there is nothing to pay unless your data comes back. There are no hourly rates applied and no "evaluation fee" as a surprise addition. We do not charge based on the value of the data.
Usually not. Portables like a MiniStation usually don't show up because the bridge circuitry has failed, and many have hardware encryption on their bridges as well. The drive inside may be perfectly fine but the data is being encrypted by the electronic bridge. We will read it through matched electronics with its own keys intact. Do not remove the drive from its case. Send us everything.
The beep you are hearing is not a status sound but an indication that there is something mechanically going on with your drive. It is simply protesting at being spun up against its own seized bearings, or because the read/write heads have become stuck to the platters. Further attempts to power cycle will only make the problem worse; the mechanics need to be released from their seizure (or replaced), which can be routinely done as part of standard recovery procedure if your drive arrives before the tenth "one more time".
No, the dialog in Windows is telling you that it cannot recognise the file system on your drive, which is not an instruction. Cancel out of the window, disconnect, and cease. The drive structure will probably be damaged but the contents of the files below the damaged areas are likely still there, and since we are going to build back up using an image of the original disk you would lose nothing by doing things this way. Formatting first simply gives us one more thing to "undo".
Yes: WD My Passport & Elements; Seagate Expansion and Backup Plus; LaCie; Toshiba Canvio; Buffalo; Samsung and others. The major difference is usually the specific issue or bug that each has (i.e., WD's hardware encryption; Seagate's firmware families; LaCie's enclosures). The price does not vary based on branding.
The reason for that beep is almost always the spindle motor fighting with read/write heads that have become stuck on the platter due to a shock: a physical failure, never an application issue. Unplug it and do not try again, as every time you do so, it will put pressure on the heads to move over your data. We outline the full process and how to repair it in our LaCie case study.
The spinning of the drive does not indicate that the data is gone; however, it is likely that there has been a failure within the drive's own firmware. The firmware essentially describes the physical hardware of the drive to a computer, so if this cannot be described (i.e. corrupted), the drive will not appear to the operating system. Typically all the actual data on the drive remains intact as well and is recoverable via repair at service-area level using specialised equipment and software. There are many resources available to help you identify why your external hard drive is showing symptoms like yours; the MiniStation case provides an example of how we were able to repair one such device and the five-reasons guide helps illustrate why your particular problem falls into a specific category.
Before posting or dropping off your item please obtain a quote using either the form on this site or by calling us. There are then two genuine options. No vans will be used. To hand over your item, go to Tay House, 300 Bath Street (only two minutes from the M8) at Charing Cross, Monday to Friday, 9am–5:30pm. We do not require appointments. Or wrap your item securely and send it to us by insured, tracked post from Paisley, Ayrshire, the Highlands or anywhere else in the UK. Either way, the work is done in-house by our own engineers, with a documented chain of custody, and your data never leaves the UK.
You don't live close to Glasgow? The distance does not matter at all to the drive; simply send it through insured and trackable delivery after receiving a quote, and our UK-wide data recovery service works identically: a free diagnosis prior to your spending any money, with a fixed written quote for the cost of recovering the data, and you will typically only be charged if we are successful.
Regardless of the symptom stated, the solution begins the same way: the whole unit (untouched) sent to us in Bath Street either via hand or insured post upon obtaining a quote, and a free diagnostic report stating the problem prior to your paying out any monies. When seeking external hard drive recovery in Glasgow the translation is what you need.