Devices · the drive that lives in a bag
If you remove the outer casing of an external unit, inside you will find a bare hard disk and a very small USB bridge circuit board that sits between the hard disk and the port. Bridge boards are known to fail randomly, in Hull like everywhere else. Most units use them to store the encryption keys. When you add all the shocks a storage device receives while being transported in a backpack, then there are two failure types to identify before your data recovery process can begin.
An engineer will take the details
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| What you see | What the fault is | What to try |
|---|---|---|
| The disk in drive X: is not formatted. Do you want to format it now? | During a write process the USB cable came out, leaving the volume RAW but the data underneath intact. | Don't push format. |
| USB device not recognized, and Windows cannot identify the device | No announcement is made to the computer: either the bridge or the hard disk has failed. | Try swapping cables one time, then quit. |
| Device Manager shows Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed) | Windows does not get any kind of identification from this device. | Bridge failure: bench work. |
| Data error (cyclic redundancy check), drive inaccessible | Dead sectors on the hard disk that the bridge is trying to access. | Remove the device and quit. |
| Disk Management reports RAW, or Not Initialized | Partition table cannot be parsed by Windows; therefore Windows wants you to wipe the disk. | Say no. Initialising will end the recovery job. |
| Windows reports that one of the attached USB devices has malfunctioned | Either the 5V rail inside the enclosure failed, or the bridge itself died. | Housing boards fail long before platter failure occurs. |
Every piece of gear that shows up receives a case number on the very same day it arrives. An engineer examines it and determines what is really wrong with it and there is no charge for this. We give you straight language about which files we will be able to copy from the disk and which ones we won't be able to. Then we provide you with a single price quote, in writing, based upon these findings. We don't begin working on anything until you agree to the quoted price.
The first question asked about any external hard drive (HD) problem: is this an enclosure problem, or is this a disk problem? There are many external HDs that come to us with absolutely nothing working (LaCie and Iomega are the usual offenders), and after removing the bad board we find that the disk behind it is still good.
No one ever flips the switch for this option. It comes already flipped. What really matters here is whether the encryption is being performed on the outside (the enclosure) or if the encryption is happening directly on the hard drive. For most portable drives the encryption happens on the bridge so those encryption keys reside on the bridge and never contact the platter(s). Get those off and you'll see areas of the disk that were showing up as noise become visible again as folders.
First things first, a hardware imager will create a bit-for-bit copy of the disk. All work from then on will be based upon this copy and not your original disk. Work product will then be delivered to you on new media and we cover the cost of posting it back to you.
You will not be charged while you think about this. First, you receive a list of everything that was recovered from the drive. Once you have seen the list and given us the go-ahead, the bill comes next. Files are returned to you on media purchased specifically for this job and we cover the return postage as well. Your job is kept open by us until you can view them on your personal computer.
One to know about: through 2023, users of the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSDs in 2TB & 4TB capacities experienced random file loss events without warning. A class action lawsuit was filed against WD (Western Digital) in the United States regarding this issue. Although a firmware update was issued during the litigation process it ultimately failed to resolve the matter. If you own one of these devices and it has exhibited any unusual behaviour, please get it imaged immediately.
The ticking started 9 days prior to submission. We installed a donor head stack and ran imaging at a low speed intentionally. Once we removed the keys from the bridge board (a Passport keeps them there), chapters, references etc. were returned. The thesis went home with 1 week to go.
No. Get a quote first either by phone or using our online request for quote form. Then post the unit as-is, regardless of how rough it may look on the outside, with all cables and any included power supplies attached, tracked and insured, to the Leeds intake lab, or drop it off there; we are open from 9am to 5:30pm, Monday to Friday, and do not require an appointment. Most portable units have encryption happening within the USB board, not on the hard disk itself. Therefore, even if the disk appears healthy when sent in on its own, it will appear to be just random noise when read by the computer.
No. This message simply states that Windows cannot recognise your file system. It tells you nothing about your actual files. Clicking yes will overwrite the exact same structures that we would attempt to rebuild from later.
A disk's travel by van causes considerable stress. Hours of vibrations during transport, rough handling and finally a temperature shock at the end of it. Many times after being transported in this manner a nearly dead disk will refuse to spin up the first time. It happens almost every week.
Almost always. The plastic case it comes in doesn't interest us whatsoever. There are three important things: 1) condition of the disk; 2) condition of the PCB on the disk; 3) whether or not the bridge chip still has sufficient remaining life to give us access to the key(s) of the disk.
Leave it off. There are only a few start attempts left in your failing drive and each attempt uses up a little more of what remains. Our complimentary diagnosis will determine what files are readable.