It went on the floor. Plugged in afterwards, the light comes on and there is a noise like it is starting, and then nothing happens and the laptop never sees it. Those symptoms are a complete description of a head fault after impact, and the sequence is worth understanding because it explains why the drive must be switched off now. The light means the enclosure has power. The starting noise is the spindle coming up to speed, which it can still do. What comes next should be the heads moving out to read the servo pattern and settle on a track, and that is the step that is not happening. Each attempt sends damaged heads out across the surface your files are written on. The platters are almost certainly fine at this stage. Whether they stay fine depends on how many more times it is tried.
| Media | Portable external hard drive, dropped on the floor. Powers and makes a start-up noise but goes no further; not recognised by the host machine. |
| Reported situation | Portable drive · dropped on the floor · light comes on when plugged in · makes a starting noise then nothing more · laptop will not recognise it · recovery sought. |
| Fault class | Head fault following impact. The drive powers and the spindle starts, but the heads cannot read, so it never presents itself. The platter data is normally intact and is reached with matched donor heads under laminar flow. Repeated power-ups are the hazard. |
| Equipment used | Not run again once the fall had been described · lifted from its enclosure and run off a bench supply with the current limited, the start-up behaviour characterised without letting it retry · opened under laminar flow in filtered air, with the head stack and the platter surfaces examined at magnification, a matched donor head stack installed and the alignment set · imaged on DeepSpar with PC-3000 UDMA driving the drive, data located and validated in R-Studio. |
A hard drive starts in stages and each one can be heard if you know what you are listening for. Power arrives and the light comes on. The spindle spins up, which is the noise being described. The heads leave the parking ramp and go out over the platters looking for the servo pattern that tells each head its position. They settle, the firmware is read, and only then does the drive announce itself to the computer.
Getting through stage two and stopping is the signature of a head fault. The mechanism has power and rotation but cannot read, so it never reaches the point of having anything to say. From outside it looks like a drive that is nearly working, and it is not — it is a drive that has done everything it is still capable of doing.
Portable drives take impacts badly for a structural reason. They are 2.5 inch mechanisms, usually running while they are being carried, and a fall onto a hard floor delivers a shock in the hundreds of g. Heads that are flying nanometres above a spinning platter meet the platter. Sometimes they survive it, sometimes they do not, and either way the correct next step is the same.
The recovery is a head replacement under laminar flow with matched donors, and the extent depends on the platters. Undamaged surfaces produce a full image. Surfaces scored by repeated attempts after the fall produce whatever is left. That is settled by inspection under magnification, and the recoverable extent is confirmed before anything is charged. Assessment free, complete within 2 working days of arrival, and physical work takes half the quote before the clean-air stage.
It was not powered again after arrival, because the history said impact and the symptoms said heads. It was taken out of its enclosure and run from a bench supply with the current limited, where the spin-up and the failure to progress could be characterised in a few seconds rather than by letting it retry. It was opened under laminar flow in filtered air, and the heads and the platter surfaces examined at magnification: the heads had failed, the surfaces were sound. A matched donor head stack was fitted, the alignment set, and the drive imaged on DeepSpar with PC-3000 UDMA driving it. The filesystem was rebuilt in R-Studio and the contents opened and checked before being written to fresh media.
Heads swapped under laminar flow, the drive then imaged, the data brought back onto fresh media. Assessment free, and one fixed written figure with VAT in it before the casing was opened. Physical work, so half fell due before the clean-air stage, the rest owed only on the result. The detail worth recording is that this one arrived having been tried perhaps three or four times rather than three or four dozen, and it is the reason the platters were clean and the image was complete. That difference is entirely in the owner's hands and it is made in the first hour.
Unplug it and leave it unplugged. The light and the starting noise are not encouraging signs; they are the last two functions the drive has left, and every retry sends failed heads out across the surface holding your files. Do not shake it, do not tap it, do not freeze it, and do not run software at it in the hope of catching a good moment. Above all do not let anybody open it to look — a single dust particle on a platter does real damage at the clearances involved. Note down roughly how many times it has been tried since the fall, because that number genuinely predicts what comes back, and send the bare drive tracked and insured.
Each file below comes from a genuine enquiry taken from households and firms across Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and the wider north-east, anonymised so nobody can be identified. Each one sets out how the fault was reasoned through, what was done about it, and which equipment did the work.
A shop that says a part inside is broken has read a dropped drive correctly — that part is the head assembly, and it is changed in clean air
A socket that has been strained once and then yanked has failed at the connection, and the drive is read past it rather than through it
Once you have tried it on everything, the process of elimination is finished — the fault is in the drive and it needs reading at its own level
Assessment is free and takes 2 working days at most once it lands, the figure is fixed in writing, and logical work carries no fix no fee. Begin online, or lift the phone.