Hey
Not quite sure were to ask this but id imagine most people here have needed such a company in the past.
One of my external HDDs died on me a while back, multiple PCs wont read it, nor can I get anything from it directly once removed from its casing. Im looking for a good, trustworthy, reasonably priced data recovery company who might be able to recover the HDDs contents for me. Anyone able to help? I live and work around London so preferably south east if possible.
Thanks!
Thats something that doesnt exist 
Before you go down that very expensive route, what have you tried so far? Its quite often possible to salvage things yourself before getting a bill for a few thousand. We may be able to offer a few things if you furnish us with some details. eg. what format was the drive, does it spin up and humm as normal, does it start clicking, beeping, what do the SMART diagnostics say? etc.
Haha too true 
Its a Western Digital Elements 1tb external drive. One day it just wouldnt read once plugged in. I tried it in various other PCs both at home and at work… nothing. I wondered whether it might be that the hdd to casing connectors that were at fault so I took the casing apart. I have tried plugging the exposed hdd directly into my motherboard as if it was an internal drive. Still unfortunately nothing.
It does spin, no unusual clicking or such noises. Windows Explorer / Device Manager does not recognition it but Disk Management does acknowledge it exists (when plugged directly into mobo), however it wont initialise it due to ‘Device I/O Error’.
Thats all I know currently. If anyone can help id appreciate it.
If you can find someone who has the exact same drive, you can swap the circuit board on the drive. I’ve done this many time in my work. If the problem isn’t with the platter or head assembly you should then be able to get your data back. You can also look on ebay for a used drive of that model if you don’t know anybody. It will cost less than using a data recovery service.
Exactly what I was about to suggest, find the same drive and swap the board over… then you can go sell a kidney to have the data recovered.
Yes, they have to ask for a kidney now due to the low birth rate in the western world… First born are quite rare, no one can afford it… :twisted:
Interesting… never thought about that. Ill defiantly hold off sending it off if theres a chance I can do it myself. Ill have to track down the same hdd but that wont be that difficult.
Regarding swapping the board, im at work right now so dont have it infront of me… is it easy?
Yes… There’s about 4 screws holding the board and that is it. The connection between the drive and the disk itself is via a contact pad so you have nothing to unsolder. There maybe an adhesive pad underit, but it’s easy to remove the board even with it.
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