iMac Hard Drive Not Showing Up Hitachi HDS722020ALA330

May 12, 2022December 29, 2021 by Aaron Hook

iMac desktop drive that just stopped working

This iMac hard drive not showing up was a Hitachi drive from a client who said the issue came up out of the blue. The client brought the computer to a computer repair shop when it started acting up and the shop found the issue with the computer was the HDS722020ALA330 hard drive itself. They pulled the hard drive from the Mac and tested it with another computer, but the drive would not mount or be recognized when plugged into a computer. 2011 iMac Drive Recovery There were photos and work documents on this drive that were important to the client, so the computer repair shop in Wichita, Kansas recommended their client bring the drive to us for an affordable clean room data recovery. Spoiler alert, this drive did not require a cleanroom recovery. A lot of shops think if they can’t get the data from the drive it must need to be opened up, but that is actually pretty rare unless the drive was dropped. We get a lot of drives sent to us … Read more

Effective Dropped Hard Drive Recovery

May 12, 2022December 24, 2021 by Aaron Hook

Toshiba laptop drive that was completely dead after being dropped

This dropped hard drive recovery features a Toshiba laptop drive that stopped working immediately after the drop. The drive was made in 2014 and has a 750GB capacity. Toshiba Dropped Hard Drive Recovery The drive was first brought to a computer repair shop that diagnosed it as having internal issues and needing a cleanroom recovery service. The shop was not equipped to handle this type of advanced lab recovery, so they recommended that the customer contact us for an affordable data recovery option. The customer called us and after discussing the project in some detail, they decided to drop it off for our cleanroom lab tier recovery service. MQ01ABD075 Recovery Diagnosis The first step with a dropped drive is to open it up and take a look at it under a microscope in a cleanroom environment. It is very important that a drive not be opened outside of a cleanroom environment so no dust or debris settles on the platters. During the inspection, you are looking for signs of platter damage, head damage, bent spindle, … Read more

Latest Not Showing Up SSD Data Recovery Service

July 1, 2022December 22, 2021 by Aaron Hook

Pioneer solid state drive that was not showing up on computer

We offer an SSD data recovery service under our affordable Standard service rate. Many recovery companies are charging a higher rate for SSD recovery services, but not us! We charge the same low rate as we do with standard hard drive recovery. SSD Data Recovery Service This older Pioneer solid state drive got referred to us by a shop that offers some data recovery services but doesn’t have the more advanced tools or experience in the data recovery field. This particular SSD was an older 120GB Pioneer model APS-SL2-120. The computer that was in use with the drive stopped mounting it, and the repair shop reported that while their recovery software could “see” the drive and even get back some folder structure, they were not able to recover any usable data files from it. Diagnosing the Pioneer APS-SL2-120 For solid state drives, I complete a quick visual inspection to verify there is no liquid or obviously burned chips present. Once that has been verified I connect the drive to the PC-3000 and check if it … Read more

Hard Drive Not Showing Up After Power Damage

May 12, 2022December 16, 2021 by Aaron Hook

PCB view of burned pins on Seagate Drive

The hard drive not showing up issue can be caused by many different things. The most common issues are ones with bad sectors, failed heads if the drive was dropped, or issues with partition corruption. Anytime a drive stops working right after some sort of power issue (like a power surge), I would suspect the PCB board to have issues. Seagate Hard Drive Not Showing Up This particular Seagate ST2000DM001 2TB Desktop Drive came from a shop that offers some data recovery services, but mainly focuses on computer repair. Their client had reported the drive no longer would be recognized by any computer, and the shop verified this was the case by attaching it to their test machines. The drive wouldn’t even spin up or make any noise when turned on. The shop that looked at the drive initially recommended the customer contact us regarding data recovery as they had important files on the drive that had not been backed up. In the past, this shop had recommended one of the larger data recovery companies … Read more

Seagate Hard Drive Making Clicking Noise

May 12, 2022December 13, 2021 by Aaron Hook

Clicking Seagate drive from laptop 500GB

This Seagate hard drive making clicking noise was a ST9500325AS 500GB Momentus drive. It came to me with the symptoms of spinning up, clicking fast, then spinning back down. The search sound between the clicks was reported to sound scratchy by the client. Recovering from hard drive making clicking noise The client was a small business in Wichita Kansas that was referred to us by a local computer repair shop. The repair shop had plugged the drive into a few shop computers to see if they could get it to mount, but it just spun up, clicked, then spun down every time. This type of behavior can be a couple of things, but classically it is either firmware or a heads issue causing the clicking noise. The repair shop recommended us because we have an affordable cleanroom recovery rate. A lot of recovery labs will quote a clicking drive as having bad heads. While this is the case frequently if a drive is dropped and then starts clicking, it is not as frequently the issue … Read more

Recover Data From WD My Passport External Hard Drive

May 16, 2022December 10, 2021 by Aaron Hook

This 4TB My Passport drive was shipped in from sunny Burbank in Southern California. The reported issue with the drive is that the data was not accessible to the user on any computer. The client had tried connecting the My Passport external hard drive to a few different computers in an attempt to recover their data, but they could not access it via the USB connection. Recover Data From WD My Passport External Hard Drive When plugged in, the computer would not recognize the drive at all or would ask if they wanted to format the drive for use. This drive had important data on it, so formatting for use was out of the question. If you have important data on a drive and your computer asks you if you would like to format the drive, always say no! Testing the My Passport external drive The first step to recover data from WD My Passport external hard drive is to diagnose it for any hardware-based issues. Any hardware based issues need to be addressed before … Read more

Important Western Digital Hard Drive Making Noise

May 12, 2022December 7, 2021 by Aaron Hook

Western Digital drive that spins up, makes noise, then spins back down

The hard drive making noise was a Western Digital WD3200AAKS model that came to us from a lawyer in Goddard whose secretary’s computer stopped working. They reported the computer stopped working but they could hear some clicking noises coming from the machine when they tried to boot it up. The drive was the main drive inside the computer and held important data as well as the operating system and programs the firm needed to run smoothly. Recovering a hard drive making noise The symptom was reported as the hard drive making weird noises and not showing up on any computer. This drive did indeed go to a computer repair shop before us, and that shop told the client the drive would likely need a lab recovery due to the clicking noises it was making. Most computer repair shops will listen to a drive like this and automatically think it has an internal problem of some kind. It sounds like a motor issue, heads issue, or some other major issue requiring a platter swap or similar. … Read more

Toshiba DT01ACA200 Hard Drive Not Working After Power Outage

May 12, 2022December 3, 2021 by Aaron Hook

2TB Toshiba Desktop Drive that stopped working after power outage

This 2TB Toshiba drive came from a local small business that creates custom T-Shirts. The drive had stopped responding after a power outage that occurred at the business location. The power outage was caused by a power surge in the area. Power Outage Failures For those keeping track at home, this was a Toshiba DT01ACA200 model drive. I generally find Toshiba 3.5” drives like this one to be fairly robust. With a power outage leading up to the drive failure, it was almost certain that the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) would be the issue with the drive. While a power surge can cause other damage to a hard drive (think head pre-amp or similar), the most common issue by far is an electrical failure on the PCB itself. Hard drive not working recovery The small business owner had brought this Toshiba hard drive to a computer repair shop in Wichita, who verified there was an issue with the hard drive and recommended that she call us directly for affordable data recovery services. While some computer … Read more

Intel Pro 2500 SSD Stopped Working

May 12, 2022November 30, 2021 by Aaron Hook

A computer repair shop in Wichita referred a client to us who had an older Intel SSD Pro drive. The customer had brought a laptop into the shop because it was no longer fully booting and reported that it had just stopped working randomly. The repair shop found that the SSD stopped working and that is what was causing the issues with the laptop. SSD Stopped Working Recovery The repair shop attempted to get the data off the drive by connecting it to another machine and using software-based data recovery tools. They were not able to get any data from the drive at all, so they recommended for the customer to contact us to see if we could help recover this Intel SSD for an affordable rate. Some people are surprised to hear that SSD drives can fail in similar ways to a regular hard drive. Always have a full backup of any important data no matter what you use to store your files, as all drives will fail eventually. I rarely see these Intel … Read more

Mac Hard Drive Recovery with Bonus Time Machine Drive

May 12, 2022November 24, 2021 by Aaron Hook

Two Hitachi drives from Macs that stopped working

A lot of the recoveries I get locally are referrals from computer repair shops around Kansas. Many people don’t know what the problem is with their computer until a repair shop takes a look and lets them know it is the hard drive inside the computer and that they will need data recovery if they don’t have a backup of any important data. Mac Hard Drive Recovery These two drives came from a customer in McPherson that was recommended to me by a local computer repair shop. The repair shop had diagnosed their 2010 Mac mini as having a bad drive. It had stopped booting fully and instead would just get stuck on the spinning wheel during startup. The customer had used Time Machine to both back up their computer every once in a while, and also to archive old files that they no longer needed to store on the computer itself. Side note here, I don’t recommend using Time Machine as an archiving utility, it is strictly for back up as it prunes archived … Read more