head crashIt is not uncommon for our team to receive data recovery projects from technicians who have done their best to recover the data themselves.  Rather than seek the advice of a professional data recovery technician, they go to the internet where advice is given without proper diagnosis of the drive’s condition.

In a recent case, the technician was encouraged to continually power the drive on and attempt to repair a somewhat common firmware issue.   After dozens of attempts, they conceded that the issue was not with the firmware and might be with the PCB and brought it to Recovery Force for a free assessment.  Our team very quickly determined that the damage was internal and confirmed the theory by opening the drive and finding severe media damage where the heads crashed down.

In this case, it is likely that the head crash happened prior to the technician’s attempts to repair the firmware.  However, we will never know if the data might still have been recoverable had it been brought to Recovery Force for an assessment before prior recovery attempts were made.

If you or your technician are trying to get data off a failed hard drive and would like some advice, please send an email to support@recoveryforce.com with the following details:

  • Drive Model
  • Symptoms
  • File system and/or Operation System
  • What has been tried
  • Where you are located
  • Contact number and/or email
  • Any other details that you might be able to provide about your specific case

One of our team members will do their best to reply to your email within a business day.  We also provide free phone support to Recovery Force re-sellers in the event that you are looking for more immediate assistance.