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IDE hard drives have not been widely used for almost 10 years now. Their SATA replacement hard drives featured a new type of connection that got rid of the parallel data cable and 4 wire D-connector type power cable

When the hard drive starts to smoke it means there is a problem with the electronic controller board of the hard drive. This is usually caused by a fault - usually in the voltage regulator chip that prevents the hard drive from powering up. Replacing the hard drive PCB with an identical one won't work as the board also controls a map of how the data is stored on each hard drive. So if you need the data from the hard drive you'll need a way of transferring the drive mapping from the old disk to the new disk too.

I have a Western Digital 'My Passport' external hard-drive that is constantly clicking and is not being detected by my MacBook Pro anymore. I usually use this for Time Machine Backups, but there are also home movies and music files on there as I have no space left on my MacBook hard-drive. I checked the WD website and it is no longer under-warranty. The guidance on the website suggested that it may be that the USB cable is faulty; however, the attachment to the hard-drive is not a type that I have seen before and I cannot find anyone with this cable. Are you able to give guidance/support and a quote for repair please?

Harddisk was run over by a tractor ! Very little damage externally…opened files successfully twice since…now light comes on when you plug it in & it 'fires up' but it is not recognised / does not open on laptops.

I have a Transcend Storejet 1 TB hard drive. Been working perfectly but after removing it from PC yesterday and going out with it, it now fails to be recognised by PC. A window just comes up saying need to format the drive. Previously it was listed in the storage as Transcend, not it is just listed as drive J. How much would it cost to recover the data. I am based in Huddersfield

Do you have any physical office in London where I can bring my hard drive to recover deleted information? Thank you in advance.

Seagate back up plus 1TB. The devise registers when plugged in but no icon appears and unable to access data on it. Funny ticks and noises and feels very warm when plugged it. I have a load or word files for university that inneed to recover if possible.

My WD external drive has failed in typical way, light is blinking, clicking sound, disk doesn't appear.

Drive won't connect to PC, had a quick check up (no attempted data recovery yet, drive hasn't been opened) and was told it is probably an issue with the power?

Here are some examples of computer problems that I regularly fix - please contact me if you would like me to solve your computer problem.

Slow Server 1TB USB Portable Hard drive, Drive was used on a server to store media(images&Video) when the drive died it caused the server to slow to a crawl also now makes a ticking noise. drive detected on PC briefly and then crashes.

Toshiba Canvio not powering up My Toshiba Canvio 3tb external hard drive won't power up. I've had it since October 2014 and it holds a lot of photos, videos and music on there.

Seagate Expansion not recognised Seagate Extension 5TB Drive is now not being recognised by my Mac. Making a short beeping sound and no light flashing as it normally would be. Drive is not showing on disk utility and also causing Mac to crash when plugging in on occasion.

WD with Failure Symptoms My HDD has most of the failure symptoms: clicking noise, beep, not recognised by the computer. It's a WD My Passport 1TB HDD, could you give me a call back starting July 13 (out of the country at the moment) or email back anytime, to discuss how much it will cost to repair and how long will it take?

I dropped my Samsung M3 1TB portable hard drive. It powers up when connected to a computer, but doesn't show up on it, and makes a beeping noise for approximately 10 seconds before stopping. Probably its USB connector port is broken. What are your prices for data recovery?

I recently had a free evaluation from Kroll for a 1TB Western Digital Passport External HD and it was found that it had an internal mechanical failure but a very good chance of data recovery (77% – 100%). Before I sent it, it had been suffering from the "click of death." However, the quote they gave me to recover was very, very expensive, so I was wondering that price range Data Clinic would charge to recover the data? I was recommended your service by a company in York.

Laptop will not turn on and displays error message in regards to system not being able to boot. I have had the hard drive taken out and would like to have important documents and certain system files recovered. It should not take up no more then 2-3GB of space and I can provide my own storage. How much will it cost to recover the files? (see http://www.recover-deleted-data.co.uk/)

Hard drive removed from laptop (not working) and connected to hard drive reader without success. The hard drive does not power up at all. I wondered whether it is still possible to recover data from the hard drive in this state? Laptop only 5 years old.

An external Western Digital hard drive has been dropped :( and the case damaged. I cannot power it up as the power interface itself has suffered damage. Hoping you can work some magic.

My iphone 5 crashed on Christmas day. I have tried to rest multiple times unsuccessfully and today took it to an apple repair centre who said it can be restored to factory setting but I cannot access the photos. Needless to say I have not backed it up for months because i am an idiot. Under normal circumstances I would not be overly concerned but many of the photos stored relate to a family member who died this year and I'm keen to explore all routes of retrieving the photos before I wipe it completely. 1. Is it feasible to recover? 2 How much would it cost.

This morning when working on the computer (Mac), I suddenly lost all partitions on an external hard drive (RAID system, LaCie d2 8TB, Thunderbolt). Some of them re-mounted after a while, but access to the data is extremely slow. Trying to rebuilt directories (using DiskWarrior) of the three unavailable partitions takes for ever and shows a message "Speed reduced by disk malfunction".

All files suddenly disappeared from external hard drive and I didn't delete them. How much would it cost to recover them in the London area?

I think my daughter removed the drive without safely ejecting it. Now when it is plugged in it just requests to be formatted. It is now not recognisable on my MacBook Pro either. I use it to back up my main HP Windows PC but I have before been able to access files when plugging it into my MacBook. The hard drive is an Hitachi 1TB XL1000. In London and have used the excellent services of http://londondatarecovery.pen.io/ before.

Wd My passport Ultra 1TB, hello I've been backing things up from our iMac and the lights are on, the disc is making a noise but its not recognised on my iMac, it is recognised in disk utility, I've tried disc utility and it says unrepairable, one minute then the partition map appears to be okay, can you help ?

My iPhone 5S is stuck in recovery mode. It was water damaged (I jumped in a canal to save a dog!) so I stuck in rice to try and save it. This worked but the home button is no longer functional. And since the iOS update you cannot swipe to enter your passcode. Therefore I turned it off as this forces a pin entry. However when I turned back on it was in recovery mode and has been since. I am not concerned about saving the phone itself, I had actually purchased a new one prior to the canal incident, but I do really want to rescue the photos which irritatingly don't appear in my iCloud photo library. In the last 24 hours the iPhone will charge off my Mac but is no longer recognised as a device.

3 questions in this post from visitors to the Data Clinic web site.

Question: I need a recording on my CCTV that has been overwritten, it will vindcate someone in a police case. Is this possible ??? Please I need this ASAP and am located in Sheffield.

Answer: I'm sorry for you as it is not possible to recover information from a CCTV system where the data has been overwritten.

Question: I have the 5BIG Lacie Raid (30TB Thunderbolt 2 version) and switching it on today it now gives me "Error code -36" in Finder when copying or writing to the drive and when I open Premiere Projects it says "Files damaged or corrupt". Could you please let me know if this is fixable either remotely or should I bring it in to your London data recovery location? FYI all 5 lights on the ride drives are blue and functioning!

Answer: Yes thanks for your enquiry you've probably got bad sectors on one or more of the hard drives that can't be read correctly. This can lead to files becoming damaged or corrupted and also greatly increase the response time of the unit. As you are in London I recommend that you take the RAID into Data Clinic's offices on Lombard Street (next the the Bank tube station)

Question: My old laptop has been left for a couple of years and no longer switches on.

Answer: Thank you for your question. My first recommendation is that we understand what the problem with your laptop is. If the only thing wrong with it is that it won't switch on then you don't need a hard drive recovery company. You can extract the data yourself. My advice is to get in touch with the people at the Data Recovery Advice web site who will be able to guide you through the steps necessary to retrieve your data.

Thanks for reading! - see you next time.