FAQ

Your drive showing up in Disk Utility/Disk Management and with the correct storage size is a great sign! Now before reading along, please power down your drive and put it aside to prevent more damage while we provide you more information about the situation.

This issue is by far one of the most common issues we see here at Five Star Data Recovery. Here are some common causes:

• Drive has bad sectors or very faint signs of media damage.
• Drive is developing firmware corruption and is in the early phases.
• Drive was ejected improperly and the file system is damaged.

But the most important question here is, how do you get your data back? And the answer is simple. Contact the Professionals at Five Star Data Recovery or any other Data Recovery Professional. Please do not go in the direction of computer repair or IT companies. Yes they will be more affordable, but you are giving your data a 50/50 chance. If the situation is not too horrible, the computer repair company will be able to recover your data using software. If the situation is more severe, then the software that the computer repair company will use will spread the tiny microscopic scratch into a huge scratch, deeming the data unrecoverable even by professionals like ourselves. There is no way the software can know how serious the issue is until it tries to recover the data, but then it may be too late.

Professional Data Recovery labs like ourselves have special equipment that are designed to work with drives such as these and honestly with drives in even worse condition. This issue is really a walk in the park for us, as long as we get the case early enough. Once these cases have been to a repair company or IT professional and then come to us, its pretty much a salvage case where we’d be lucky to recover bits and pieces after all the damage.

Since your drive was ejected improperly, this might have caused damage to the file system where the index of your data is stored on your hard drive. Our best recommendation is to stop what you are doing and immediately bring your drive in for a free diagnosis.

If your drive was not formatted for an exFAT, then plugging your drive into a PC possibly caused damage to your file system. In this case, stop what you are doing and bring your drive in for a free diagnosis.

Please visit our YouTube channel for more detailed videos on common hard drive failure issues and why you shouldn’t try to recover the data yourself. Although sometimes it is possible for you to be able to recover data using software you can download from the internet, its not a good idea, especially in cases where the drive has had physical damage. As the internet is progressing and consumers are getting more accustomed to doing things themselves, we are seeing more and more cases becoming unrecoverable due to this. Consumers are downloading software to recover their data and in the process damaging the drives to a point beyond recoverability.

There are too many factors to take into account when attempting to recover data from a physically damaged drive. How did the drive fail? How much data was on the drive? What types of files are on the drive? What does the inside of the drive look like (this must be done by a professional in a clean room)? How is the condition of the read/write heads?

If your drive took a drop, bump, improper ejecting from the computer or any other physical damage, PLEASE DO NOT connect the drive to a computer and try using software to recover the data. We assure you this will cause the data on the drive to be unrecoverable. You can see hundreds of pictures on our Yelp and Instagram pages of deep scratches on platters caused by using software on drives with this type of damage. Software cannot skip these areas of media damage. It will just try to read these areas over and over again until it takes a tiny microscopic baby scratch and turns it into a huge gauge in the platters. When we have a small microscopic baby scratch, professional Data Recovery companies like ourselves can work with that and recover between 90-99% of the data, as long as we receive the case early enough. When we receive these cases after the customer has already played with it for hours with software, there is almost a 0% chance of getting the data.

At Five Star Data Recovery, we offer a FREE diagnosis. There is never a fee for us to take a look at the case and see if the data is recoverable. When we receive physically damaged drives early enough before the drive has been tampered with by consumers or computer repair shops, chances are we can recover the data without even doing any Clean Room repairs. Every case is different and requires a fair chance to be diagnosed by a professional. Call, Email, Text or Live Chat with us the moment you have an issue with your drive and we will be happy to provide the best Data Recovery Service possible.

Since you are hearing beeping sounds from your hard drive, your issue should be what’s called stiction. Stiction is where the read/write heads get stuck onto the platters and when powering on, the drive makes beeping sounds. The longer you attempt to power on your drive, the more damage you can cause to your drive. Immediately stop what you are doing and bring your drive in for a diagnosis.

You recently dropped, bumped, improperly ejected or mishandled your hard drive and now it’s making clicking sounds. Before you continue reading this post or do anything, PLEASE POWER DOWN the drive IMMEDIATELY and safely put it aside.

In order to understand this clicking sound, we first need to understand how a hard drive works. Inside the hard drive, we have platters (where the data is stored) and read/write heads (similar to needles of a record player). When we power on a hard drive, if we listed carefully we can hear the platters start spinning first, once they reach their full speed, the read/write heads come off of their parking ramps, hovering nanometers over the platters and start reading/writing the data from/to the platters. The heads never ever touch the platters. When the drive is safely powered down, the read/write heads go back on their parking ramps and only once they are safely off of the platters will the platters stop spinning.

So now that we have a basic understanding of how the drive works, we can try to envision what happens when we drop/bump/improperly eject a hard drive when its powered on. The heads are moving back and forth (nanometers about the platters), reading and writing to the platters as they are spinning at 7,000 rpm’s. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, the drive gets bumped/dropped/improperly ejected. The head (s) touch the platter (s) for split second making a scratch on the platters. As you try to access the data that is stored on that area where the scratch is, the head is becoming more damaged as its taking on pieces of shrapnel from the scratch. After multiple attempts to read with the damaged heads, the head eventually gives up and loses its ability to read and starts going back and forth over the platters hitting the middle of the disc, thus causing that clicking sound.

Once you hear the drive is clicking, IF the data is important, you should never ever try to make any attempts to recover the data yourself. Please don’t take the drive to a computer repair shop, an IT professional or a friend who is “good with computers.” We assure you, we’ve seen it all. It’s impossible for any of these people to be able to be of any help to you in this situation. Will they save you money if they could recover the data? Yes of course! But unfortunately, this is way out of their league. Every time someone powers on the drive to attempt to recover the data, they are just spreading that tiny little scratch and making it bigger, deeper and wider.

If your drive is making clicking sounds, power down the drive, safely put it aside and contact us or any other Professional Data Recovery Company. Data is extremely precious and not worth taking chances with. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by phone, text, live chat or email to answer any questions you may have.

Whirling sounds aren’t usually a good sign for the health of your drive.  Do not continue the use of your drive and immediately bring your drive in. Your drive will need to be opened in our Clean Room Lab to make sure there is no damage to the platters and/or read/write heads.

It all depends on what device you erased your files from as well as what time frame you erased it. In this case, we would need more information so give us a call or bring your drive in for more information on if your erased files are recoverable.

If you completely wiped your drive by formatting it, then in some cases we are able to either recover a small amount of files depending on your usage capacity, or we might not be able to recover any files. Also, make sure you do not continue using the computer because you can overwrite your previous data making your files unrecoverable. Turn off your computer and bring it in for a free diagnosis so we can determine the chances and percentage of recovery.

Chances of recovery can vary in this case. Take into account that your files might have been overwritten from update. Bring your drive in for a free diagnosis so we can determine the chances of recovery for you.

We understand how frustrating it can be to look for that one file that is missing from your hard drive. The only way to determine the location of your missing file is to bring your drive in.

There can be a few reasons why your drive is running slow. Your drive can be either damaged, in the midst of failing, or can be a potentially a mechanical issue. In the case your drive is not performing the way it should, we recommend you no longer use the drive and bring it in for a free diagnosis.

If your drive is freezing and during a transfer then most likely your drive has bad sectors or has some kind of damage. Our best recommendation is to stop what you are doing and bring the drive in for a free diagnosis.