A clicking or grinding hard drive is a mechanical fault. Every time you turn the drive on there is a risk of further damage occurring. Our engineers will replace all damaged components from our inventory of 10,000 parts and then recover your lost data here in our offices.
Your clicking or grinding drive has a mechanical problem. Every time you switch this drive on, the heads may scrape against the platters and therefore cause loss of data which could be recovered at present. Do not run recovery software on this drive, do not put it into a freezer, do not continually restart it; simply shut it down and contact us.
The noise produced by a clicking and grinding drive is indicative of its mechanical problems. This is one of the most common faults we encounter and one of the many that we successfully recover every week.
Over two decades we have successfully repaired all types of failing hard disk drives with grinding, clicking sounds. If it contains data stored on spinning disks we can almost certainly assist.
Internal and external · 3.5" desktop and 2.5" laptop · SATA, SAS, IDE/PATA and SCSI · from 40 GB legacy drives to the latest 24 TB helium models.
Recovery of a clicking and/or grinding hard disk drive involves opening the drive, replacing the damaged parts and reading your data in the correct order, after all repairs are complete.
Send us your drive by post or bring it into our office. Once we receive your drive we will write a no obligation, quoted price for repair, typically inside 48 hours.
An engineer opens the drive at our facility to visually inspect the condition of the heads, platters and motor; this allows us to determine precisely which component(s) are causing the problem.
We locate matching replacement heads, motors or printed circuit boards from our existing stock of 10,000 items; we don’t need to wait weeks for a donor unit to arrive.
Once we identify which component(s) are causing the failure of your drive (most commonly the head stack), we repair them by replacing those defective components so that once again your drive can access your information stored on the platters.
In order to recover data from your damaged disk drive, we copy each block (sector) to a safe location using sector-by-sector cloning methods which allow us to work around those sectors with the greatest risk of failure.
We create copies of your files using the imaging process, compare those files to a list of the original files, and then provide your restored data on new media.
Your data will be backed-up onto an external hard drive, and shipped back to you, or you will be able to access your restored data via our free download service for up to 75 GB.
Since we keep all of our own matching heads, motors and boards at our facility, we can usually move failing “clicking” or “grinding” drives into the repair process immediately without having to wait for weeks while trying to find a good donor drive.
Tell us about your drive and we will get back to you, usually within 30 minutes during the day.
We will be in touch shortly. For anything urgent, call 0117 332 1137.
There are no hidden costs and/or pressures, simply a complimentary examination and a detailed written quotation prior to commencing any repair.
Some examples of recent clicking & grinding recoveries we have completed in-house: names removed to protect privacy; results confirmed.
An example of a classic head-stack failure caused when the drive was dropped. The head was replaced with one from stock and we were able to image the drive on the second pass.
Identified as a failed spindle motor. We transferred the platters to a donor spindle unit (from stock), realigned the heads and recovered all files from the original platters.
Heads stuck after being knocked. The head stack was replaced from inventory, the drive was imaged and every file was recovered prior to the customer’s deadline.
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No invented reviews here — every testimonial we publish is genuine. Ask us to arrange a reference for a job like yours on 0117 332 1137.
Send us your device for a no-obligation free diagnostic and let us know what went wrong. One of our engineers will inspect it and confirm your exact quote in writing prior to doing any work.
To get started with recovering your data, first get your device to us. Wrap it securely, write your contact details on a slip of paper inside the package, include a brief description of what happened and post it to us. After running a complimentary diagnostic we will write to you confirming the exact price prior to starting work.
Do you want to post the device to us? We highly recommend using a trackable postal service with insurance. Would you prefer to deliver it yourself? That’s fine too. Our office hours for accepting deliveries are Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm. Please make sure to wrap the device as described previously.
Need some additional information regarding our data recovery services? Fill out the form and provide further detail about your problem and one of our engineers will review it and offer you a personalised quote.
We’ll be in touch shortly. For anything urgent, call 0117 332 1137.
What do people ask us most often about recovering data from a clicking or grinding hard drive?
Clicking or grinding sounds generally mean there’s a mechanical failure. Usually this will be caused by either the read/write heads having failed or crashed or the spindle motor having seized. Once a drive gets to the point of producing the ‘clicks’ of death it cannot be simply moved to another computer and fixed; it must be disassembled, repaired and rebuilt.
No. Any time a drive is turned back on after its heads have failed, there is a high risk of scratching the disks, converting what could have been recovered into unrecoverable data loss. Do not power on the drive again until you contact us.
In most cases, yes. We dismantle the drive in-house, replace the failed component (most commonly the head-stack and/or motor), use a part that we stock in house to do so, and then clone the drive and reconstruct your files. While other companies may refuse to take drives like these as repairs, they are routine for us.
The base cost for repairing a failing/failed hard disk due to clicking/grinding noises is £300 + VAT. As part of our service, prior to us commencing work on your recovery we offer you a complimentary diagnostic report detailing what is wrong with your disk(s) and how much it will cost to repair them; in most cases you only pay if we recover your data, although for some jobs we charge a parts & labour fee when the disks were damaged through being dropped, have been opened before we received them, or have scratches on one or more disk platters.
The average completion time for recovering data from a failing/failed hard disk, following receipt of an approved quotation is typically within 2 working days. Although the majority of diagnostics are completed within 48 hours of receiving a new case. Urgent cases can often be prioritised if you let us know.
All major brands: Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba, Samsung, HGST, Hitachi, Maxtor, Fujitsu, IBM, Quantum, SanDisk, LaCie, G-Technology, Buffalo, Verbatim, ADATA, Transcend, Silicon Power, Iomega, UnionSine, ModusTech and Intenso, in both internal desktop (3.5 inch) and portable laptop (2.5 inch) and external enclosures, across interfaces including SATA, SAS, IDE and SCSI.
The item may be delivered to our office in Bristol (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm) where you will receive a complimentary diagnosis and a written quote prior to the initiation of any repairs, or sent by post insured. When sending by post please ensure that the device is well packaged, sealed, and includes all contact information for yourself within the packaging (name, address, telephone number and email address). This allows us to book the unit in for repair when we receive it.
A complimentary written diagnostic assessment; in most cases you only pay if we recover your data; and an inventory of 10,000 parts available for each repair. Begin recovering your data today!