External Hard Drive Recovery

Cardiff Data Recovery is Wales’ No.1 external hard disk data recovery specialist with over 25 years of experience. We offer fast, secure, and highly effective recovery services for all makes and models of external hard drives. Whether your drive has been accidentally dropped, is no longer recognised, or has suffered a power surge, our in-house engineers have the tools and expertise to recover your critical data.

We specialise in data recovery from external hard drives in the UK and support a wide range of drives and failure types for individuals, professionals, and businesses across the region.

🔧 Our Services – External Drive Recovery

We provide professional recovery for all types of external storage devices:

• Portable USB external hard drives
• Desktop external drives
• SSD external drives (NVMe/USB-C/Thunderbolt)
• Encrypted and password-protected external drives
• Mac Time Machine and Windows Backup external disks
• External RAID and dual-bay enclosures

No matter the cause of the failure, we recover your data with a forensic-grade approach and the latest technology in data recovery labs.

💽 Supported External Drive Interfaces

We recover from all industry-standard and legacy interfaces, including:

• USB 2.0 / USB 3.0 / USB 3.1 / USB-C / Thunderbolt
• SATA (Serial ATA)
• eSATA (External SATA)
• PATA / IDE
• SCSI
• SAS (Serial Attached SCSI)
• M.2 (NVMe/PCIe)
• U.2
• FireWire (Legacy Mac devices)

🏷️ Top 30 Selling External Drive Brands in the UK (With Best-Selling Models)

We recover data from all major consumer and enterprise-grade external storage brands sold across the UK, including:

⚠️ Top 30 External Hard Drive Faults & Recovery Methods

We recover from every known type of fault affecting external hard drives, including mechanical, logical, and electronic failures. Here’s a breakdown of the top 30 issues and how we resolve them:

1. Mechanical Failure – Involves motor or head issues. Requires cleanroom head replacement and platter imaging.
2. Bad Sectors – Surface degradation. Sector-by-sector cloning and error correction employed.
3. Firmware Corruption – Damaged microcode or service area. Repaired via manufacturer-specific firmware access tools.
4. Logical Corruption – File system or partition table errors. Reconstructed using deep volume scanning.
5. PCB Failure – Burnt or shorted control board. Replaced with donor PCB and custom ROM remap.
6. Accidental File Deletion – Recovered through file system index reconstruction before overwrite.
7. Drive Not Recognised by System – Often firmware, connector, or PCB failure. Requires diagnostic and reinitialisation.
8. Power Surges – Damages controller ICs. Electronics repaired and drive stabilised for cloning.
9. Head Crash – Physical contact between head and platter. Donor heads used in cleanroom environment.
10. Platter Damage – Scratches or contamination. Imaged carefully using read optimisation.
11. SSD Controller Failure – Chip-level fault. Recovered using chip-off and NAND interpretation.
12. NAND Flash Wear (SSD Degradation) – Advanced ECC and block-level recovery from degraded flash.
13. Accidental Formatting – Recovery from raw partition and metadata carving techniques.
14. Overheating Damage – Heat-stressed components replaced or bypassed for temporary stabilisation.
15. Encrypted Drive Failure – BitLocker and hardware-encrypted drives handled with key-assisted access and image repair.
16. Interface Port Damage (USB-C, USB 3.0) – Re-soldering of damaged connectors or port controller replacement.
17. Dropped Drive – Mechanical misalignment. Requires internal rebuild and safe platter handling.
18. Water/Liquid Damage – Drive is dried and cleaned, and internals are inspected for chip damage.
19. Drive Beeping or Clicking – Common symptom of head failure; donor head replacement performed.
20. Stuck Heads (Stiction) – Heads are gently unstuck and repositioned using manual techniques.
21. No Power Response – Power supply or protection circuit failure; bypassed to restore power.
22. Partition Table Corruption – Table is rebuilt using file signature recognition and volume metadata.
23. Corrupt Boot Sector – Repaired with custom boot sector injection and file system reconstruction.
24. File System Not Recognised – FAT/NTFS/exFAT/HFS+ restored using custom recovery scripts.
25. Multiple Faults (Compound Failure) – Combined physical and logical techniques used in a staged process.
26. SSD Firmware Bug – Identified and patched using vendor-specific tools to regain access.
27. Drive Freezes During File Transfer – Caused by surface instability or controller fault; recovery via adaptive imaging.
28. Read/Write Failures – Often caused by degrading NAND or weak sectors; mitigated via ECC and retry imaging.
29. Unallocated or RAW Drive – Logical volume is rebuilt by analysing sector boundaries.
30. Excessive Reallocation Events – Drive under imminent failure; stabilised for imaging and sector cloning.

💡 Why Choose Cardiff Data Recovery?

• 25+ Years of Proven Experience
• In-House Engineers Only – No outsourcing, full control of data security
• Cleanroom Facilities – Class 100 environment for mechanical work
• Support for All External Brands and Interfaces
• Free Diagnostics – Full fault analysis before recovery
• High Success Rates Across All Devices
• Fully Confidential and Secure Process

We are the trusted partner for individuals, businesses, schools, and government agencies in Cardiff and across Wales.

📞 Get Your Free Diagnostics Today

If your external drive has stopped working, has been dropped, or is no longer recognised by your computer – don’t delay. Power off the drive and contact Cardiff Data Recovery for a free diagnostic and expert support.

We understand how critical your data is. Our experienced engineers will guide you through the process and provide the most effective solution tailored to your drive and data loss scenario.