Burnt PCB & Electronic Failure Data Recovery
Drive dead after a power surge or the wrong adapter? We repair burnt circuit boards and electronic faults on hard drives, SSDs and external drives.
Electronic failures
Every hard drive, SSD and external drive depends on its circuit board (PCB). Power surges, lightning, faulty power supplies and – very often – plugging in the wrong power adapter can burn out components on the board. The drive then appears completely dead, or you may see scorch marks or smell burning.
What we repair
- TVS protection diodes – designed to short out to protect the drive during a surge.
- Motor controller chips – burnt out when a motor jams or power spikes.
- Voltage regulators and fuses on SSDs and external drives.
- USB bridge boards in external drives, including encrypted WD models.
- SSD controller power circuits – see SSD data recovery.
Highest success rates in hard drive data recovery
Why you can’t simply swap the board
Modern hard drive boards contain a small chip (ROM) holding adaptive data unique to that drive – calibration for its heads and platters. A board from another drive, even the same model, won’t have the right data and can damage the drive. We either repair the original board or transfer the ROM chip to a matching donor board. See also firmware repair.
How it works
- Free initial consultation – we confirm whether the fault is physical or logical.
- Clean room diagnostic (£79 + VAT) – the drive is opened in our ISO 5 clean room and the damaged parts identified, normally within about 24 hours.
- Donor parts – if parts are needed, we send you a link to buy a matching donor drive, or buy it for you.
- Repair and imaging – the drive is repaired just enough to be read, then cloned sector by sector with professional PC-3000 equipment.
- Recovery and return – we rebuild the file system, check your files and copy them to an external drive.
Frequently asked questions
I plugged in the wrong power adapter. Is the data lost?
Usually not. The protection components often do their job and the data is safe on the platters. The board needs repair before the data can be read.
How much does PCB repair cost?
Hard drive physical recovery is £450 + VAT; SSD electronic board repair is £450 to £650 + VAT. The consultation is free.