Three parts make up an external drive unit: the disk, a small board with some logic to translate the SATA connection to a USB port and a path for the electrical power to be delivered to the board. Two of these three components are not the disk, and between them they cause most failures of the external drive. This is why so many external drives appear to have failed but actually contain a fully functional disk.
On most newer versions of Western Digital's My Passport and My Book series of external units, the encryption key for the disk lives on the USB bridge board. Thus if you remove the disk from the enclosure it appears blank/ unformatted and Windows offers to initialise it. When you accept, you do harm to what would have been a good drive.
Only one of the three is the hard drive, but all three could potentially be the problem with your external drive. Therefore, many "dead" externals are simply broken bridges.
Each of these options rules out one of the three components described above, and none of them can possibly harm any other part.
USB cables fail internally and no external signs will be present. The provided USB cable was typically the least expensive component in the entire package.
Never use a hub or connect to a monitor. If a bus-powered 2.5-inch drive does not turn at all on a hub that cannot provide sufficient power it behaves as if it has failed completely.
The power brick should match the same voltage rating and have matching polarity. Many people experience what they believe is failure of their 3.5-inch external drives when in fact it was just a lack of adequate power being supplied.
Determining whether there is an issue with either the drive itself or if it's a computer or software/OS issue can take approximately one minute with this method.
If the external drive spins quietly and does not appear in Windows Explorer, the issue lies with the bridge. In most cases, the hard drive itself is good. If the external drive is making clicking noises or screeching sounds as if something inside is being damaged, the mechanical aspects of the disk are failing. Unplug it, and do not reconnect the cable to test. Each time you turn a failing external drive on, it will cause additional damage.
In general the disk inside is a standard drive; what distinguishes them from each other is the case they have around their disks and how that case behaves when it fails.
WD: My Passport, My Book & Elements, including the hardware encrypted models where the original bridge board must come with the drive. Seagate: Expansion, Backup Plus & One Touch, portable & desktop. LaCie: Rugged, d2, 2big & the Thunderbolt units. LaCie designs cases rather than mechanisms so generally the disk inside will be a Seagate.
Toshiba Canvio, Samsung, SanDisk and Iomega also pass through regularly, Iomega included, although the brand was wound down years ago — there is no support to call but the mechanism inside is ordinary. Multi-bay units such as the My Book Duo or LaCie 2big hold an array inside the case and are handled as array work.
In all cases of the three above-mentioned components being faulty, the cost will be the same.
Single external drives are from £300 +VAT, confirmed by written quotation after the complimentary 48-hour diagnostic. Multi-bay and RAID enclosures are considered array work and therefore priced from £500 +VAT.
It’s worth mentioning: In instances where the diagnostic indicates both a failed bridge and a good disk, it’s a small job and we charge accordingly, i.e., as a short job, not a full recovery fee for something that took an afternoon. If however, the failure was mechanical within the disk itself, there is a 50% deposit taken for mechanical work prior to the remainder being charged upon successful completion. Please send us the entire unit including the enclosure, cables, and power supply if you still have those items. Unit can be sent to Peter House located on Oxford Street, or via postal service with insurance.
Send us the entire unit along with a short letter describing what occurred. There is no charge for the diagnostic process that follows and we provide you with only one price quote in writing prior to beginning any work.
No work will start until the entire unit is on our bench. Make sure you pack it correctly, and include your contact information. What comes next is a free diagnostic. We provide one price quote in writing before starting any work.
Posting it? Use a tracked and insured service. The value of what is on the drive far exceeds the cost of postage. Bringing it in? Weekdays from 9am to 5:30pm, and it still needs packing as described above for the journey.
Still unsure if it's worth sending? Describe the problem(s), describe the drive, describe the faults, describe anything else you've tried — every single one of those gets read by an engineer, who then returns with their honest opinion of the likelihood of success and a price range — before you spend postage.
We’ll be in touch shortly. For anything urgent, call 0161 871 0788.
The main technical questions from our customers who have had their external drive fail.
Often, it isn't. It’s an “all-in-one” type of device — i.e., the drive (disk), the electronics (bridge board) and the power supply. The electronics die more often than the disk does. So a quiet spinning drive which will never show up is probably just fine. The disk inside is usually working perfectly. What's gone wrong is the electronics.
No! Especially if your drive is a WD. Most newer My Passport and My Book models come with encryption turned on. The encryption keys are stored on the electronic board of the drive. If you pull the physical disk out of the case (and therefore the encryption keys away from the physical disk) and try to read it, the system will tell you that the disk is unformatted even though there is no problem at all. And if you then initialise it, that does real damage. Always send us the entire drive.
Remove the cable from both ends and do not connect it again to test. Since you've heard the click, it likely indicates that the read/write head(s) are either failing or hitting the spinning surface. As soon as you apply power again, you're causing additional damage. Minutes really do count here.
No. The error message indicates that either the partition table or file system cannot be read by Windows; it doesn’t mean that your data is lost. When the drive is formatted, the new file system will overwrite the one a recovery would use to find your files.
Usually a substantial proportion, but this really depends on how much the drive was damaged and whether the drive was powered at all. A drive dropped while powered down often survives untouched. If the heads were flying across the disks when it fell, they can strike the platters and the damage is immediate.
The minimum fee is £300 + VAT for each individual external hard drive. For multi-disk units (such as RAID systems), there is a higher minimum fee (£500 + VAT). The final fee quoted will always depend upon the nature of the problem with your unit, and it is fixed in writing after a free 48-hour diagnostic. In cases where the issue with your unit consists of simply a failed bridge and a perfectly working disk, we charge for it as the smaller task it is.
Send these as complete units rather than opening them yourself. There are some ranges where the encryption key is located on the bridge board inside the case; therefore, a bare disk appears unformatted even when it's in perfect health.
Names with an arrow have their own guides, i.e., brand-specific failures and what those will mean for the recovery.
£300 +VAT per drive. The price is fixed in writing first. Please send us your entire unit including the enclosure. On a lot of units, the bridge board inside the case is the only thing that can decrypt the disk, and the case is the drive.