Hard Drive Data Recovery in London
Clicking, dead, dropped or corrupted hard drive? Our engineers recover data from every make and model of HDD.
Professional hard drive data recovery you can trust
When a hard drive fails, every attempt to power it up can make the damage worse. Data Doctor (Creative IT UK) has spent more than 20 years recovering data from failed hard drives for home users, small businesses, schools, public bodies and large companies across the UK. Every recovery is carried out in-house at our lab in Bermondsey, London SE1 – nothing is outsourced.
We start with a free initial consultation to find out whether the fault is physical or logical and the best way to recover your data. If the drive needs to be opened, a clean room diagnostic costs £79 + VAT. You then receive a clear quote based on our published price list before any recovery work begins.
Hard drive faults we recover from
Hard drive failures fall into two groups. Physical failures are mechanical or electronic faults inside the drive; logical failures are problems with the data, partitions or file system while the hardware still works.
- Clicking, grinding or beeping drives – usually failed read/write heads or a seized motor. See our guide to clicking hard drives.
- Drive not detected in Windows, macOS or the BIOS – often a PCB, firmware or head fault.
- Dropped or knocked drives – damaged heads or scratched platters that need clean-room work.
- Burnt PCB after a power surge – controller board repair or transfer of the adaptive ROM to a donor board.
- Firmware corruption – common on Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba drives, repaired with professional PC-3000 tools.
- Bad sectors and slow, freezing drives – imaged with specialist hardware that reads unstable areas safely.
- Deleted files, formatted or repartitioned drives and corrupted NTFS, exFAT, APFS or HFS+ file systems.
- Water, fire and flood damage – see flood damaged hard drive recovery.
Mechanical and electronic faults are repaired in our own clean room – see physical data recovery and our ISO 5 clean room.
Highest success rates in Hard Drive Data Recovery
Our hard drive recovery process
- Free initial consultation – drop your drive at our SE1 lab, post it to us, or book a pickup. We tell you whether the fault is physical or logical.
- Clean room diagnostic (physical faults, £79 + VAT) – we open the drive in our clean room, identify the damaged parts and confirm whether a donor drive is needed. This normally takes around 24 hours.
- Quote – we explain the fault, the chances of success and the price. Nothing happens until you approve it.
- Repair and imaging – physical repairs such as head replacements are carried out in our ISO 5 (Class 100) clean room. The drive is then cloned sector by sector so we never work on your original data.
- File recovery and checks – we rebuild the file system and check that your key files open correctly. You can give us a list of priority folders.
- Secure return – your data is copied to an external drive, which you can buy from us at the current market price. Your original drive is returned or securely destroyed, as you prefer.
Standard recoveries usually take 2–4 working days. If you cannot wait, choose our emergency data recovery service.
All makes and types of hard drive
We recover data from desktop and laptop drives, external USB drives, NAS and server disks, and legacy IDE and SCSI drives. Brands include Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba, Samsung, Hitachi, Maxtor, Fujitsu, LaCie and G-Technology.
If your data was on a solid state drive, see SSD data recovery. For multi-disk systems, see server and RAID recovery.
What to do if your hard drive has failed
- Switch it off. A clicking or grinding drive can destroy its own platters if it keeps running.
- Don’t run recovery software or CHKDSK on a drive with a physical fault – it stresses the heads and can overwrite data.
- Don’t open the drive. A single dust particle can cause a head crash.
- Don’t put it in the freezer or swap the circuit board yourself – modern boards hold drive-specific data.
The less the drive is used after it fails, the better your chances.
Secure and confidential
Our lab has controlled access and every job is handled under strict confidentiality. Recovered data is only ever returned to you.
Frequently asked questions
How much does hard drive data recovery cost?
Logical recovery of deleted files starts at £99 + VAT. Physical recovery of a single drive is £450 + VAT for labour, plus a donor drive if needed and a £79 + VAT clean room diagnostic. The initial consultation is free. See our full price list.
How long does hard drive recovery take?
The clean room diagnostic usually takes about 24 hours and most recoveries are completed in 2–4 working days. Logical recoveries typically need 24–48 hours of recovery work. An emergency service is available for urgent cases.
Can you recover data from a clicking hard drive?
Yes, in most cases. Clicking usually means failed heads, which we replace in our clean room before imaging the drive. Switch the drive off to avoid further damage.
Will I get my original hard drive back?
Yes. We always return your original drive unless you ask us to destroy it securely.