Devices · external & portable drives
Portable drives have an even tougher life than anything contained within a computer and add a USB bridge with its own failure modes as well. Each problem can be repaired on a workbench, and from Exeter we are just a single tracked parcel away. Home based guesswork doesn't usually do so. First get a quote via telephone or using the form, then post us the complete portable drive, i.e. in its enclosure along with its cable and also its power supply (if it has one), or drop off your portable drive at our Bristol intake lab, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed.
Talk it over with an engineer
0800 6890668
| What it says | What it usually means | Step one |
|---|---|---|
| You need to format the disk in drive X: before you can use it | RAW is usually due to unplugging in the middle of a write operation, and you can still find those files intact | Leave that Format button alone |
| USB device not recognized — the last USB device you connected malfunctioned | Bridge or disk: neither is announcing itself | One different cable, then no more attempts |
| Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed) — Code 43 | Windows can't identify the device without a descriptor | Bridge trouble: for the bench |
| The drive is not accessible. Data error (cyclic redundancy check) | Bad-sector damage on the drive inside the caddy | Keep it disconnected |
| Disk Management shows Not Initialized or RAW | Windows can't read it and offers to wipe it | Say no: initialisation destroys it |
| One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned | Either the power or the bridge board in the caddy has failed | More often than not, the drive inside is fine; it's the board that's dead. |
Your device will be logged under its own case number on the day it comes into our lab. The engineer who works on your device identifies the problem with it, clearly states what we think has a good chance of coming back and provides you with one fixed quote. There are no charges for this assessment; there is no obligation for you to do anything; and paid work does not begin until you authorise us to start.
Step one is to determine if you have an issue with either the enclosure or the drive (i.e., 'the box' or 'the disk'). Many of those seemingly 'dead' external drives (such as ageing LaCie and Iomega units) are actually good disks that are being held hostage by a bad board in the enclosure.
Many externals, WDs above all, encrypt within the bridging logic of the board instead of within the drive. The keys to recover your sectors are taken from your original board. Thus, an unreadable sector soup becomes your files again.
Clones are created at the level of sectors on hardware imaging devices, with the next step being to rebuild the folder structure from that created sector-level clone. Once completed, this newly constructed folder structure will be transported to you on new media, sent by post with the postage paid.
You have access to a complete list of every item recovered from your device, which you approve prior to any fees being applied. The files will be returned via new media (brand new) with the return postage paid by us, and the case remains open for as long as it takes to confirm that all the files open properly on your own machine.
For the record: the SanDisk Extreme portable SSD trouble (2023) affected users who experienced sudden file loss on their 2TB & 4TB devices. This resulted in a class-action lawsuit against Western Digital and ultimately outlasted the intended firmware fix that would have resolved this issue. Misbehaving drives need to be captured using an imaging device as soon as possible.
The hard drive started to click nine days prior to a dissertation due date. We then installed donor heads on the drive, very slowly took an image of the drive and transferred the encryption keys off the USB bridge: all of the chapters and citations were back at home with plenty of time to spare.
Get a quote first, by phone or through our form, then send everything, broken case and all, with its cable and its power supply if it has one. On many externals the board in the USB bridge contains the encryption keys; without this board you will get nothing but scrambled reads from a healthy drive.
No. The error indicates that the file system can no longer be read from; this doesn't mean there is nothing on the drive. A format deletes the exact information needed for a recovery to work.
A hard disk experiences physical stress in transit: vibrations, shocks and temperature swings. Often, if the disk was already failing before you posted it to us, it will fail when powered on at our lab for the first time. We get that report a lot every week.
Almost always. What counts is not the disposable caddy, but rather the drive inside, the condition of its PCB, as well as whether the bridge chip has enough life left in it to provide the necessary encryption key information.
Every time a failing hardware component is powered back up, there is additional lost data. First open a case with us: the inspection (look over) is always at no cost, whichever way it goes.