An external throwing read errors on some files while others behaved normally, with A-Level coursework on it and a deadline coming. That mixed behaviour feels survivable, and it is exactly what makes people keep using the drive.
A student preparing for A-Levels kept their coursework on a LaCie Rugged — the orange bumper being popular with students precisely because it survives being carried around.
The drive began taking noticeably longer to be recognised, then started returning “the request could not be performed because of an I/O device error” on some files while others opened normally.
That mixed behaviour is characteristic and it is dangerously misleading. A drive that still opens most things feels like a drive that basically works, so people keep using it — and every additional read of a weakening surface costs a little more.
Worth being precise, because “I/O device error” sounds like a cable problem and is not.
When a drive cannot read a sector it does not give up at once. It retries internally — repositioning the head, adjusting timing, attempting to resolve the data through its error correction, sometimes for many seconds on a single sector. Only when all of that is exhausted does it return an uncorrectable-data error to the host.
So by the time Windows shows that message, the drive has already tried everything available to it and failed. It is not a transient glitch and it is not the cable. It is the drive reporting the end of its own capabilities on that sector.
The slower recognition on plug-in is the same fault at start-up: the drive reads its own configuration from reserved tracks before it will answer anything, and a head struggling to read is a head struggling to read that too.
The diagnosis found head degradation — the heads still flying but no longer reading cleanly — together with bad sectors that had begun accumulating in regions holding file-system structures.
That last detail explains the pattern precisely. A bad sector inside a file damages that file. A bad sector inside the master file table damages every file whose record happens to live in it, regardless of where the file’s contents sit. Since those records are allocated in the order files were created rather than by folder, the result looks random from the user’s side: two documents saved in the same folder on the same afternoon, one fine and one unreachable.
Critically, there was no physical damage to the platter surfaces. Nothing was scored and the data was all still present. That set the expectation for the whole job: a drive that needed reading very carefully, not one that needed rebuilding.
One contributing factor worth noting on this model. A bus-powered 2.5″ external draws everything from the USB port, and a drive working harder — retrying, repositioning, re-reading — draws more current than one reading cleanly. Marginal power makes marginal reads worse, which is part of why these deteriorate faster once they start.
This is the decision that saved the coursework, so it is worth explaining rather than asserting.
Consumer recovery software scans a drive by reading it, and when a read fails it retries, because on a healthy drive with one bad patch that is the right behaviour. On a drive with degrading heads it means hours of sustained retrying concentrated on precisely the regions least able to take it — each retry another pass of a marginal head over a weakening surface, generating heat and, eventually, contact.
It is among the commonest ways a recoverable drive is finished off, and it happens with the best intentions.
The drive was imaged on a hardware imager with retry limits set deliberately low — the opposite instinct to recovery software. A sector that does not come back on the second attempt is skipped and logged rather than fought over.
The first pass swept the readable regions at speed, securing the bulk of the coursework before the drive was asked to do anything strenuous. Only then were the difficult areas revisited, in later passes with longer timeouts and reads in both directions — a reverse pass frequently recovers sectors adjacent to a defect that a forward pass abandoned mid-retry, because the head approaches them from a different position.
Nothing was written to the drive at any stage.
The file system was rebuilt from the completed image. Documents and presentations were opened in their applications rather than counted — a coursework file that lists correctly and fails to open is worse than useless the day before a deadline. A small number of files spanned a bypassed region and needed individual repair; each was checked by hand.
Everything came back: written work, research notes, presentations and the multimedia components. The student submitted on time.
What made it straightforward was that they stopped using the drive when the errors started rather than persisting. On a drive with degrading heads and intact surfaces, that single decision is the difference between a full recovery and a partial one. A single external drive is from £300 +VAT after a free 48-hour diagnostic — send the unit complete with its enclosure.
Post it or bring it in. Either way the diagnostic costs nothing and commits you to nothing, and you get one figure in writing before a single screw is turned.
Nothing can begin until the device is on the bench, which makes this the only step that needs anything from you. Pack it properly, put your details in with it, and send it over. What follows is a free diagnostic and a written figure, in that order.
Posting it? Use something tracked and insured — whatever is on the drive is worth considerably more than the postage. Bringing it in? Weekdays, 9am to 5:30pm, and it still wants packing as above for the journey.
Tell us what the device is, what it is doing, and anything already tried — an engineer will come back with a realistic view of the odds and a price band, before you commit to posting anything.
We’ll get back to you soon. Anything pressing, call 0161 871 0788.
That the drive gave up. Before that message appears it has repositioned the head, waited whole revolutions for the sector to come round again, and worked through its error correction — sometimes for many seconds on a single sector. So it is not the cable and it is not transient: it is the drive reporting the end of its own capabilities. It usually indicates degrading heads or bad sectors rather than a dead drive — and it means the drive should be taken out of use rather than retried.
Yes — and the mixture is what makes it dangerous. A drive that still opens most things feels basically functional, so it stays in use. Meanwhile a bad sector inside the file table takes out every file whose record happens to sit in it, regardless of where those files live, which is why the pattern looks random from outside.
No, and this is the commonest way a recoverable drive is finished off. Consumer software retries on failure, because on healthy hardware that is correct. On degrading heads it means hours of sustained retrying concentrated on precisely the regions least able to take it. Imaging does the opposite: retry limits set low, gaps logged and revisited later.
From £300 plus VAT for a single external drive, quoted in writing after a free 48-hour diagnostic. Send the unit complete with its enclosure rather than removing the disk.
Kick off with an instant online quote, or ring us and talk it through first. Either way you’ll know a clear, fixed price before any work starts.