What Is a “Stuck Head” on a Hard Drive?

Stuck heads occur when a hard drive’s read/write heads are locked into place on (or over) the hard drive’s platters. They’re unable to move back to their original position, and the hard drive’s spindle may be unable to rotate the...
June 21, 2023

Using Data Recovery Software? Start with a Clone

If you absolutely need data from a failed hard drive, solid-state drive, or other device, the safest course of action is to contact a professional data recovery provider. Each attempt to recover the files could exacerbate corruption or permanently erase...
June 20, 2023

How to Fix: External Hard Drive Causes Computer to Freeze

If your external hard drive causes your computer to freeze, operate slowly, or fail to boot, there’s a good chance that you’re dealing with corruption of the filesystem or a physical hard drive issue. Other issues can also cause these...
June 19, 2023

4 Questions to Ask When Receiving a Data Recovery Quote

Before attempting data recovery, engineers must evaluate each case to determine the cause (and extent) of data loss. While flat-rate data recovery exists, reputable providers insist on evaluations — in another article, we explained what happens during a data recovery ...
May 19, 2023

Logical Data Recovery Guide: Using Software to Recover Data

At Datarecovery.com, we discourage the use of data recovery software. Software can exacerbate issues like hard drive head crashes, potentially causing permanent damage (and preventing a successful recovery, even if the drive is treated in a professional data recovery laboratory). ...
May 8, 2023

Hard Drive Seek Time: What It Means (And Why It Matters)

A hard drive’s seek time is the time that the head assembly takes to travel to a specific track on the platters where data can be stored. Since seek time varies depending on which track it needs to access, “seek...
May 2, 2023

What Is a Lost Hard Drive Partition?

In data storage technology, a partition is a container with a file system. The file system allows the data storage device to manage files.  Every popular data storage device uses partitions. Without partitions, a device might still contain the magnetic...
April 12, 2023

Microsoft Surface Pro Data Recovery

The Microsoft Surface is a popular series of touchscreen-based devices. Some models boast a terabyte of data storage — however, if you open up your Surface Pro (we do not recommend doing so), you won’t see anything that looks like...
February 14, 2023

Do Data Recovery Engineers Care About Pirated Movies and TV Shows?

One of the most common questions we receive is regarding our liability to report illegal content on recovered devices.  To be clear, there is certain content that must be reported to the authorities — particularly videos and pictures of child...
December 5, 2022

What Is a Hard Drive Spindle Failure?

The hard drive spindle is a shaft that holds the platters in place. The platters are disks coated with a thin magnetic material — that magnetic material stores your data. Modern hard drives often have multiple platters, and part of...
October 13, 2022