Cardiff Data Recovery is the trusted name for professional hard disk recovery solutions in Wales. With over 25 years of experience, we are Cardiff’s leading hard disk data recovery specialists, providing expert diagnostics and recovery services for individuals, businesses, IT professionals, and government sectors.
We recover data from all major hard drive manufacturers, interfaces, and failure types – no matter how complex or severe the issue.
🔧 Services We Offer
We provide full-service hard disk data recovery for all failure types and file systems. Our services include:
- Mechanical hard drive recovery
- SSD (Solid State Drive) recovery
- RAID array recovery
- External USB and portable drive recovery
- Encrypted drive recovery
- Deleted file and formatted drive recovery
- Firmware and PCB repairs
- Data extraction from physically damaged drives
Whether your drive is clicking, undetected, or completely dead, our engineers use specialised cleanroom facilities and forensic-grade imaging tools to safely recover your data.
💽 Supported Hard Drive Manufacturers
We recover data from all major manufacturers and models, including legacy and current-generation drives. Some of the top hard disk brands we support include:
Top 10 Hard Disk Manufacturers in the UK
- Seagate
- Western Digital (WD)
- Samsung
- Toshiba
- Crucial
- SanDisk
- Kingston
- ADATA
- Hitachi (HGST)
- Intel
Best-Selling Models We Recover From
Seagate:
- Barracuda
- FireCuda
- IronWolf NAS
- Exos Enterprise
Western Digital (WD):
- WD Blue
- WD Black
- WD Red NAS
- WD Gold
Samsung:
- 860 EVO
- 870 QVO
- 980 Pro NVMe
- T7 Portable SSD
Toshiba:
- P300 Desktop
- X300 Performance
- N300 NAS
- MQ Series Laptop Drives
Crucial:
- MX500 SSD
- BX500 SSD
- P3 NVMe
SanDisk:
- Extreme Portable SSD
- Ultra 3D SSD
- SSD Plus
Kingston:
- A400 SSD
- KC3000 NVMe
- Fury Renegade
ADATA:
- SU800
- XPG GAMMIX S70
- Legend 960
Hitachi (HGST):
- Ultrastar
- Deskstar
- Travelstar
Intel:
- SSD 660p Series
- Optane SSDs
- D3-S4510 SATA
💻 Supported Interfaces & Technologies
We recover from any hard disk interface, including:
- SATA (Serial ATA)
- PATA / IDE (Parallel ATA)
- NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express)
- SAS (Serial Attached SCSI)
- SCSI
- PCIe
- M.2
- U.2
- eSATA
Our proprietary tools and industry-specific software allow us to access data at firmware and sector level across all platforms and devices.
🛠️ 30 Most Common Hard Drive Faults We Recover From
Our lab-based engineers are trained in diagnosing and recovering from a full spectrum of faults. Below are the top 30 hard drive issues, including technical recovery methods:
- Mechanical Failure – Involves head stack or spindle motor damage. Requires Class 100 cleanroom disassembly and donor part replacement.
- Firmware Corruption – Damaged service area or ROM. We reprogram drive firmware using manufacturer-specific tools.
- PCB Failure – Burnt or shorted electronics. We swap PCBs and reprogram ROM for access.
- Head Crash – Physical contact with platters. We perform head swaps in sterile environments and image the drive.
- Platter Damage – Scratched surfaces may cause unreadable sectors. Sector-by-sector imaging techniques are used to extract viable data.
- NAND Degradation (SSD) – Flash wear over time. We use chip-off recovery or controller emulation.
- Bad Sectors – Surface defects on platters. We use adaptive imaging tools to bypass bad areas and rebuild data.
- Deleted Files – Metadata reconstruction and file carving used to restore deleted content.
- Accidental Formatting – Partition table recovery and logical rebuild performed.
- Drive Not Recognised by System/BIOS – Often due to firmware or PCB issues; resolved by reinitialising service modules.
- Overheating – Warped components may require hardware stabilisation and imaging.
- SSD Controller Failure – Requires controller mapping and direct NAND access.
- Electrical Power Surge – Damages preamp or PCB; donor boards are used with precise voltage mapping.
- RAID Degradation – Rebuilding RAID logic manually or using parity reconstruction.
- Head Stiction – Heads stuck to platters; requires manual release and safe restart.
- Motor Seizure – Stuck spindle; needs platter transfer or donor swap.
- Uninitialised Drives – Logical rebuild of partition tables.
- Encrypted Drive Failures – BitLocker and hardware encryption handled with key-assisted decryption and secure clones.
- Clicking Drives – Caused by actuator issues; donor heads used to stabilise.
- Ticking/Beeping Drives – Indicates spindle or firmware faults. Requires internal inspection.
- Damaged File Systems – NTFS, HFS+, EXT4 and others rebuilt using specialised tools.
- Logical Corruption – Caused by system crashes; corrected using logical rebuild and recovery imaging.
- Virus-Corrupted Drives – Damaged file structures reconstructed and malware isolated.
- SSD Firmware Bug – Vendor-specific tools used to reflash and recover.
- Unresponsive USB Drives – Interface conversion to SATA and then recovery.
- Water or Liquid Damage – Internal cleaning and drying followed by donor transplant if needed.
- Fire-Damaged Drives – Carbon removal, reassembly, and imaging under microscope.
- Partition Loss – Table reconstruction through sector scans and data carving.
- Unreadable Boot Sector – MBR/GPT repair and boot sector reallocation.
- Multiple Faults (Compound Failures) – Hybrid approaches combining physical and logical recovery steps.
🧠 Why Choose Cardiff Data Recovery?
- 25+ Years’ Experience in complex data recovery scenarios
- Cleanroom Environment for mechanical repairs
- In-house Engineers – no outsourcing
- Free Diagnostics – We assess your drive and provide a recovery report
- Fully Confidential & Secure Handling
- High Success Rates – Up to 97% data recovery
When your data matters most, trust the experts who handle thousands of drives annually with precision and care.
📞 Book Your Free Diagnostics Today
Don’t wait – if your drive is making strange noises, not detected, or behaving abnormally, power it off immediately and contact Cardiff Data Recovery.
Speak directly with a data recovery technician or drop your drive at our Cardiff lab. We’ll handle the rest.