Maidenhead Data Recovery — Maidenhead’s No.1 Hard Disk Recovery Specialists (25+ Years)

With over 25 years’ experience, Maidenhead Data Recovery provides professional recovery for all hard drive types and fault modes. We support every major manufacturer and model, including Seagate, Western Digital (WD), Toshiba, Samsung, Hitachi (HGST), Intel, SanDisk, Kingston, Crucial, ADATA, Corsair, Fujitsu, PNY, Sabrent, TeamGroup, LaCie and more.

Interfaces We Support (current & legacy)

Internal / direct-attach

• SATA (2.5″/3.5″), mSATA, micro-SATA (1.8″)

• PATA/IDE (3.5″/2.5″), ZIF/PATA 1.8″

• SAS (3/6/12 Gb), Parallel SCSI (SPI) (legacy)

• PCIe/NVMe: M.2 (B/M/M+B keys), U.2 (SFF-8639), U.3 (tri-mode), PCIe add-in cards

• SATA Express (legacy)

External / enclosure / fabric

• USB 2.0/3.x/USB-C bridges (JMicron/ASMedia/Realtek/Initio/Phison/etc.)

• Thunderbolt 1/2/3/4 DAS enclosures

• eSATA

• FireWire (IEEE-1394a/b) (legacy Mac)

• Fibre Channel (FC-AL/SAN) logical LUNs

• iSCSI/NAS logical LUNs and exported volumes

25 Widely-Used Drive Brands We Regularly See (with representative popular series)

(Representative examples; we recover across each brand’s full range.)

1. Seagate — Barracuda/BarraCuda Pro, IronWolf/IronWolf Pro, Exos; One Touch/Expansion (external)

2. Western Digital (WD) — Blue/Black/Red/Red Plus/Red Pro, Purple, Gold; Elements/My Passport (external)

3. Toshiba — P300/X300 (desktop), N300 (NAS), MG Series (enterprise); Canvio (external)

4. Samsung — 870/860 EVO (SATA SSD), 980/990 (NVMe), T5/T7/T9 (portable SSD)

5. HGST (Hitachi) — Deskstar/Ultrastar/NAS (now WD)

6. Crucial (Micron) — MX500 (SATA), P3/P5/P5 Plus (NVMe), X6/X8 (portable)

7. Intel — 545s/660p/670p/SSD DC series (enterprise)

8. SanDisk (WD) — Ultra/Extreme (SATA & portable SSD), Professional (G-Drive)

9. Kingston — A400, KC3000, NV2, Fury Renegade; DataTraveler (USB)

10. ADATA — SU/SX series (SATA), XPG SX/S70 (NVMe)

11. Corsair — MP510/MP600 (NVMe), Force Series (legacy SATA)

12. PNY — CS900/CS2140, Pro Elite portable

13. Sabrent — Rocket 4/5 (NVMe), EC line (USB enclosures)

14. TeamGroup — T-Create/T-Force Cardea (NVMe), CX series (SATA)

15. Transcend — 230S (SATA), MTE series (NVMe), StoreJet (external)

16. LaCie (Seagate) — Rugged, d2, 2big/6big/12big

17. G-Technology / SanDisk Professional — G-Drive, G-RAID, G-Speed

18. Fujitsu — MHZ/MJA legacy 2.5″ HDDs (still encountered)

19. Maxtor (legacy Seagate) — DiamondMax/OneTouch (legacy externals)

20. OWC — Aura (Mac NVMe), Mercury Electra/Extreme (SATA/externals)

21. Verbatim — Store-n-Go externals

22. Lenovo (OEM) — ThinkSystem/ThinkPad-branded SSD/HDD (re-badged vendors)

23. Dell (OEM) — Enterprise SAS/SATA/NVMe (Seagate/WD/Toshiba/Micron)

24. HPE (OEM) — Enterprise SAS/NVMe (Smart Carrier)

25. Apple (OEM) — Blade SSD modules (2013–2015), T2/Apple-silicon soldered NVMe (logic-board)

50 Common Drive Faults We Recover From — and How We Recover

Mechanical / Head–Platter / Spindle (HDD)

1. Head crash: sliders contact media → immediate read fails.
   Recovery: donor head stack; transfer adaptives; conservative per-head imaging.

2. Stiction: heads stuck to platters after shock.
   Recovery: controlled release to ramp; low-stress imaging first pass.

3. Weak/degraded heads / poor read channel: slow/ERR timeouts.
   Recovery: head-map imaging, reduced speeds/queues; donor swap if needed.

4. Spindle seizure / bearing lock: no spin or chirp.
   Recovery: platter/hub transplant to matched chassis; image immediately.

5. Bent actuator / pivot play: track-follow instability.
   Recovery: donor actuator; recalibrate adaptives; resume imaging.

6. Servo damage: cannot lock; continuous seeking.
   Recovery: donor heads; adaptive tuning; servo-assisted imaging.

7. Load/unload ramp damage: mis-parked heads.
   Recovery: ramp replacement, slider inspection; head-select imaging.

8. Contamination / particulate ingress: post-impact/opening.
   Recovery: clean, donor heads if scored; ultra-conservative passes.

9. Helium loss (He drives): aerodynamics change; unstable channel.
   Recovery: short duty cycles; parameter tuning; donor heads if needed.

10. Off-track writes (shock): metadata inconsistency.
    Recovery: per-zone imaging; logical rebuild around coherent regions.

Electronics / PCB / Power (HDD & SSD)

11. TVS diode short (over-voltage): dead/low resistance.
    Recovery: isolate/replace TVS; verify rails; image.

12. Motor driver failure: spins then cuts out.
    Recovery: donor PCB/driver; validate currents.

13. Controller IC failure: no enumerate / erratic ID.
    Recovery: donor PCB + ROM/adaptive transfer; firmware access; image.

14. Preamp failure (HDD): spins but no read channel.
    Recovery: head swap (preamp integrated); calibrate; image.

15. Liquid ingress corrosion: oxidised pads/tracks.
    Recovery: controlled clean; micro-jumpers; ROM migration; image.

16. PSU surge cascade: multiple ICs compromised.
    Recovery: staged board repair; current-sense checks; firmware triage.

Firmware / System Area (HDD)

17. SA module corruption: fails init/abnormal ID.
    Recovery: alt-head boot; patch modules; rebuild defect lists/translator.

18. Translator damage: broken LBA mapping.
    Recovery: regenerate from P/G-lists; recalculated zones; image.

19. Media-cache / write-cache bugs: freezes.
    Recovery: disable features; firmware patch; controlled imaging queues.

20. SMART/log overflow: slow init/loops.
    Recovery: clear logs; suppress background tasks; image.

21. Adaptive mismatch (after PCB swap): spins, no access.
    Recovery: move unique ROM/adaptives; re-lock microcode.

22. Failed microcode update: brick/erratic.
    Recovery: safe-mode loader; re-flash; regain access.

Media / Sector-Level (HDD)

23. Bad-sector storms: URE spikes/timeouts.
    Recovery: multi-pass (soft→hard), dynamic head-map; late fills.

24. Reallocated/pending saturation: severe slowdowns.
    Recovery: skip windows; targeted re-reads; fill later.

25. Thermal asperities: heat-related stalls.
    Recovery: cool-down cycles; short duty windows.

26. Boot sector / LBA0 damage: disk seen, no mount.
    Recovery: image; reconstruct boot structures from mirrors/metadata.

SSD / NVMe (NAND, FTL, Controllers)

27. Controller failure: 0 MB / no detect.
    Recovery: where possible: donor + ROM; else chip-off + FTL rebuild.

28. FTL corruption: IDs but no user data.
    Recovery: vendor/test mode; dump translation tables; rebuild L2P.

29. NAND wear / read-disturb: uncorrectables.
    Recovery: ECC-aware reads; voltage/temp tuning; soft-decoding.

30. DRAM-less cache collapse: hangs/timeouts.
    Recovery: safe-mode load; emulate cache flush; rebuild map.

31. Power-loss during write: metadata loss.
    Recovery: controller repair; journal/cache reconstruction.

32. OP region damage: wear-levelling breaks.
    Recovery: factory/vendor mode; reconstruct tables.

33. NVMe namespace corruption: present, no volume.
    Recovery: rebuild namespace; logical recovery from intact blocks.

34. PCIe link instability: intermittent enumeration.
    Recovery: lock lanes/speeds; reset flows; stable HBA capture.

Logical / File-System / Partitioning

35. Accidental deletion: records removed; data intact.
    Recovery: image; recover from metadata (MFT/APFS snapshots); carve.

36. Quick/full format: new FS over old.
    Recovery: deep metadata scan; rebuild directory trees.

37. NTFS $MFT/$MFTMirr corruption: missing records.
    Recovery: reconstruct from $LogFile/$Bitmap; recover orphans.

38. exFAT allocation/meta damage: lost chains.
    Recovery: infer from directory entries/boundaries; carve.

39. APFS container/BTrees damage: broken fsroot/extents.
    Recovery: parse checkpoints; rebuild trees; resolve clones.

40. HFS+ catalog/extent issues: no tree.
    Recovery: rebuild from extents + journal.

41. ext4 superblock/JBD2 issues: unmountable.
    Recovery: alternate superblocks; journal replay; inode rebuild.

42. XFS log corruption: inode/leaf errors.
    Recovery: xlog replay; btree repair.

43. ReFS integrity stream faults: metadata loss.
    Recovery: salvage intact objects; export; catalogue repair.

44. Partition table/GPT loss: disk “raw”.
    Recovery: locate FS signatures; virtual re-map; mount for export.

Security / Encryption (lawful, with keys)

45. BitLocker/FileVault/LUKS locked: needs credentials.
    Recovery: image first; decrypt with recovery key/password; rebuild FS.

46. Hardware-encrypted USB bridges: bridge failed.
    Recovery: repair/match identical bridge; present plaintext; image.

Connectivity / Bridge / Cabling

47. USB-SATA/NVMe bridge faults: random resets.
    Recovery: bypass bridge; direct attach; stabilise then image.

48. Damaged SATA/SAS backplane/expander: intermittent I/O.
    Recovery: attach drives to stable HBA ports; image independently.

Environmental / Operational

49. Overheating / thermal throttling: stalls and timeouts.
    Recovery: temperature-controlled imaging; small QD; rest cycles.

50. Power events (brown-out/surge): inconsistent writes.
    Recovery: image; reconcile at FS level (journal replay); targeted repair.

Professional Recovery Process (How We Work)

1. Diagnostics & Imaging — Stabilise the device; capture a sector-by-sector image using PC-3000/Atola/DeepSpar or NVMe HBA. Originals are left untouched.

2. Firmware & Electronics Repair — ROM/adaptive transfers, service-area module repair, donor PCB/motor driver where needed to regain stable read access.

3. Mechanical Interventions — Head-stack replacement, spindle/hub transplant, actuator/ramp service with precise alignment; then immediate low-stress imaging.

4. Logical / Data Reconstruction — Partition and file-system rebuild (NTFS, HFS+, APFS, ext, XFS, ReFS, exFAT, etc.); repair of catalogs, journals and metadata; content-aware fixes (e.g., Office/Photos/video containers).

5. Verification & Delivery — Hash verification, spot-open of critical files, and secure return via encrypted media or secure download with manifest.

Why Choose Maidenhead Data Recovery?

• 25+ years in business with thousands of successful recoveries

• Multi-vendor expertise across consumer, enterprise and SSD/NVMe technologies

• Advanced tools & large parts inventory to maximise success

• Free diagnostics with clear, risk-aware recovery plans