Hard Drive Recovery in Leeds
Is your external hard drive making a clicking noise? Has your laptop drive stopped spinning? We are Leeds' specialists in mechanical hard drive repair. We recover data from dropped, damaged, and "dead" drives at our Headingley workshop.
We Fix "Unfixable" Drives
If you've taken your drive to a regular computer shop in Leeds, they probably told you it's broken and the data is gone. They are wrong. Regular shops only know how to run recovery software. If the drive has a physical fault, software can't see it.
We are different. At our Leeds lab, we open the drive in a Clean Air environment. We replace the damaged read/write heads with donor parts. We fix the seized motor bearings. We replace the burnt PCB electronics.
We have successfully recovered terabytes of data for students at the University of Leeds, local photographers, and businesses in Leeds City Centre.
Common Failures We Fix
1. The "Click of Death"
If your drive goes "Click... Click... Click...", the read/write heads are failing to find the track. This is a mechanical failure. We use a donor drive to transplant healthy heads into your drive to read the data.
2. Beeping / Buzzing
If the drive makes a faint beeping or buzzing sound and doesn't spin, the motor is seized or the heads are "stuck" on the platter (stiction). We use specialized tools to carefully lift the heads off the surface without scratching your data.
3. Dead PCB (No Power)
If you plugged the wrong power cable in and smelled smoke, you fried the circuit board (PCB). We can repair the electronics or transplant the unique "ROM" chip to a new board to bring the drive back to life.
Why Local Matters
Don't post your drive to a stranger.
- Visit Us: Come to our shop in Headingley (LS9 6AZ). Meet the engineer who will work on your drive.
- Speed: Posting a drive to London takes days. We can start the diagnosis within minutes of you walking in.
Supported Brands
We fix them all:
- Western Digital (WD): Passports & Elements.
- Seagate: Expansion & Backup Plus.
- Toshiba: Canvio Basics.
- Samsung / LaCie: Rugged Drives.
HDD Recovery FAQs
Questions we get in Leeds.
Is it expensive?
It depends on the fault. Simple electronic repairs are cheaper (£90+). Head replacements (which require a donor drive and cleanroom work) are more expensive (£250+). We always give a fixed quote first.
Will opening it destroy data?
If YOU open it, yes. Dust will destroy it. If WE open it in our Class 100 Clean Bench, no. We have the training and equipment to do it safely.
Can I wait while you fix it?
Diagnosis can be done same-day. The actual recovery usually takes 3-5 days because copying data from a damaged drive must be done very slowly to avoid further damage.