Most drives announce themselves for weeks before they stop — long pauses, stalling copies, freezes that clear on their own. It reads as an old computer and it is usually a dying disk. That phase is when almost everything is still recoverable, often by you, for nothing.
$ mdr diagnose /dev/sda → Device: Seagate ST2000DM006 · 2 TB → Status: NOT DETECTED — service area / firmware corruption → Client: confidential · Manchester, Greater Manchester $ mdr engineer-working → Service area: firmware repaired → Drive: re-initialised · detected → Imaging: 1.82 TB / 2.00 TB (91%) $ mdr verify → ✓ documents — 64,820 files → ✓ photos — 51,300 files → ✓ drive visible again — recovered
Long pauses opening files, transfers that stall at the same point, the machine freezing then recovering — these are a disk retrying weak sectors, not software bloat. It is the stage where almost everything is still recoverable, and the stage people spend months ignoring.
Most failures are gradual, and the signs are consistently misread as the computer getting old.
The pattern is distinctive once you know it. A file that takes twenty seconds to open and then opens instantly the second time. Copies that run fast then halt at the same percentage. Windows freezing for half a minute with the disk light solid, then carrying on as though nothing happened. Each of those is the drive retrying a sector many times before it succeeds, and the operating system waiting for it.
What makes this worth acting on is that a drive in this state is still readable. Almost everything can be copied off, by you, that afternoon, at no cost. The failures that arrive here as expensive recoveries are overwhelmingly ones that spent months in this phase while somebody decided the laptop was getting old.
Free, non-destructive, and it removes the guesswork.
CrystalDiskInfo on Windows, DriveDx on macOS, or smartctl from a terminal. Install it to a different drive than the one you are worried about.
Sectors the drive has already retired because they failed. A handful is normal. Anything in the hundreds, or climbing, means it is actively deteriorating.
Sectors it cannot read but has not yet retired — the more informative figure. Any pending count above zero on a drive you care about deserves attention today.
The rate of change matters more than the number. A count that moves between two readings means the drive is failing now rather than at some point in the past.
Not an image, not a clone — just copy the files that matter somewhere else, most important first. Then stop using the drive.
All well-intentioned, all commonly suggested, all wrong for a drive that is physically failing.
The most useful thing we do on these is sometimes tell you not to bother.
A single failing drive is from £300 +VAT, fixed after a free 48-hour diagnostic. Imaging a deteriorating surface needs graduated passes and takes longer than a healthy drive, but the price does not change for that.
If you call while the drive still mounts and reads, we will usually tell you to copy your files off yourself and keep the money. That advice costs us the job and it is the correct advice — there is nothing a laboratory adds to a drive you can still read. Ring first; the conversation is free either way.
Send the device over with a short account of what happened to it. The diagnostic costs nothing and commits you to nothing, and the figure that follows is fixed in writing before anything is opened.
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 be in touch shortly. For anything urgent, call 0161 871 0788.
What we get asked most about drives the computer won’t detect or recognise.
Transfers that stall at the same point, files that fail then open on a second attempt, long freezes with the disk light solid, and slowness that arrived suddenly rather than gradually. Install CrystalDiskInfo or DriveDx and check the reallocated and pending sector counts.
Sectors the drive cannot currently read but has not yet retired. They are the more useful figure because they indicate active trouble rather than damage already dealt with. Any pending count above zero on a drive that matters deserves attention today.
No. It reads every sector for hours on a disk already struggling, and repairs by discarding what it cannot reconcile — giving you a consistent file system rather than your files. If the drive still reads, copy the data off instead.
Probably not, and we will say so. If it mounts and reads, copy your files elsewhere, most important first, then stop using it. A lab adds nothing to a drive you can still read yourself.
Nobody can tell you honestly. Some drives run for months with a rising reallocated count; others fail within days. What is certain is that the counts never go back down, so the window only narrows.
From £300 plus VAT for a single drive, fixed in writing after a free 48-hour diagnostic, with most jobs no fix, no fee.
Behind every repair sits a 10,000-part inventory, a free written diagnostic to open, and no fix no fee on most jobs. Begin your recovery today.