Desktop Computer Hard Drive Data Recovery

Maidenhead’s No.1 Desktop HDD & SSD Recovery Specialists (25+ Years)

With over 25 years’ experience, Maidenhead Desktop Computer Drive Data Recovery recovers data from all desktop storage types and faults—from classic 3.5″ HDDs to high-performance PCIe/NVMe SSDs and multi-drive workstations. We support every major manufacturer and model, including Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, ASUS, custom/self-build PCs, and the underlying drive brands (Seagate, WD, Toshiba, Samsung, Crucial, Kingston, etc.).

Desktop Storage Interfaces We Support (host & drive side)

Internal / direct-attach

• SATA (1.5/3/6 Gbps) 3.5″/2.5″, mSATA, micro-SATA (1.8″)

• PCIe/NVMe: M.2 (B/M/M+B keys, PCIe 3/4/5), U.2 (SFF-8639), U.3 (tri-mode), PCIe add-in card SSDs

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

• PATA/IDE 40/44-pin (legacy), ZIF/LIF 1.8″ (legacy)

• SATA Express (legacy)

External / enclosure / fabric seen with desktops

• USB 2.0/3.x/USB-C (BOT/UASP), Thunderbolt 1/2/3/4, eSATA/eSATAp, FireWire 400/800 (legacy)

• Logical storage over iSCSI, Fibre Channel (FC-AL/SAN), NAS shares/LUNs (for workstation projects)

Common bridge chipsets (for safe bypass when needed)
JMicron, ASMedia, Realtek, Initio, VIA, Phison, Genesys Logic, Cypress (USB↔SATA/NVMe)

25 Desktop/OEM & Drive Brands We Regularly See (representative popular series)

(Representative examples—recovery supported across each brand’s full range.)

1. Seagate — BarraCuda/Pro, IronWolf/Pro (NAS), FireCuda (SSHD/SSD), Exos (enterprise)

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

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

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

5. HGST (Hitachi, now WD) — Deskstar/Ultrastar/NAS (in many workstations)

6. Crucial (Micron) — MX500 (SATA), P3/P5/P5 Plus (NVMe), T700 (PCIe 5)

7. Kingston — A400, KC3000, NV2, Fury Renegade (NVMe)

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

9. ADATA / XPG — SU/SX (SATA), S70/S70 Blade (NVMe)

10. Corsair — MP510/MP600/MP700 (NVMe), Force Series (legacy SATA)

11. Sabrent — Rocket 4/5 (NVMe), external enclosures (EC series)

12. PNY — CS900 (SATA), CS2140/CS2241 (NVMe), Pro Elite (portable)

13. TeamGroup — T-Force Cardea (NVMe), CX series (SATA)

14. Transcend — 230S (SATA), MTE (NVMe)

15. Intel — 545s/660p/670p (client), DC P-series (enterprise NVMe)

16. Micron — 5300/5400 (SATA), 7400 (NVMe)

17. SK hynix — Gold S31 (SATA), Platinum P41 (NVMe)

18. Patriot — Viper VPN100/VPR400 (NVMe), Burst (SATA)

19. Mushkin — Reactor (SATA), Delta/Pilot (NVMe)

20. OWC — Mercury Electra/Extreme (SATA), Accelsior (AIC), Envoy (TB)

21. LaCie (Seagate) — d2/2big/6big/12big desktop DAS

22. G-Technology / SanDisk Pro — G-Drive / G-RAID desktop units

23. Dell (OEM) — OptiPlex/XPS/Precision with WD/Seagate/Toshiba/Micron drives

24. HP (OEM) — EliteDesk/Z-Series workstations (SAS/SATA/NVMe mixes)

25. Lenovo (OEM) — ThinkCentre/ThinkStation (OEM WD/Seagate/Toshiba/Micron)

50 Desktop Storage Faults We Recover — and How We Do It

Mechanical / Head–Platter / Spindle (HDD)

1. Head crash → Donor head stack, retain ROM/adaptives, per-head conservative imaging.

2. Stiction (heads stuck) → Controlled ramp release; immediate soft-pass imaging.

3. Weak/degrading heads → Head-map; image good heads first; donor swap if needed.

4. Spindle seizure/bearing failure → Platter/hub transplant to matched chassis; image at low duty cycle.

5. Servo damage → Donor heads + adaptive tuning; servo-assisted reads.

6. Load/unload ramp damage → Ramp replacement; head-select imaging.

7. Rotational vibration (multi-drive chassis) → Vibe isolation; short reads; queue throttling.

Electronics / PCB / Power

8. TVS diode short (PSU surge) → Replace/isolate TVS; verify rails; image.

9. Motor driver failure → Donor PCB/driver; current-sense checks; resume reads.

10. Controller IC failure → Donor PCB with ROM/adaptives transfer; firmware access; image.

11. Preamp failure (HDD) → Head swap (preamp integrated); recalibrate; image.

12. Liquid/coolant ingress on PCB → Controlled clean, micro-jumpers, ROM migration.

Firmware / Service Area (HDD)

13. SA module corruption → Alt-head boot; patch modules; rebuild translator/defect lists.

14. Translator damage → Regenerate from P/G-lists; re-zone; image.

15. SMART/log overflow (slow init) → Clear logs; suppress background tasks; image.

16. Media cache / background tasks hang → Disable features via vendor tools; queue-controlled imaging.

Media / Sector-Level (HDD)

17. Bad-sector storms → Multi-pass (soft→hard), skip/late-fill; track marginal bands.

18. Pending/reallocated saturation → Targeted re-reads; late fills; rebuild around gaps.

19. Thermal asperities → Temperature control; short duty cycles; cooldowns.

SSD / NVMe (NAND/FTL/Controllers)

20. Controller failure (0 MB/no enumerate) → Donor + ROM where viable; else chip-off & FTL (L2P) reconstruction.

21. FTL corruption → Vendor/test mode; dump translation tables; rebuild mapping.

22. NAND wear/retention loss → ECC-aware reads; voltage/temp tuning; soft-decoding.

23. DRAM-less SLC-cache collapse → Safe-mode init; emulate cache flush; rebuild map.

24. Power-loss metadata damage → Journal/cache recovery; map re-sync.

25. OP/metadata region loss → Factory/vendor utilities; reconstruct tables.

26. NVMe namespace corruption → Rebuild namespace; export intact blocks.

27. PCIe link instability (bifurcation/risers) → Lock link width/speed; stable HBA capture.

Platform / Mainboard / Connectivity

28. Dead SATA port / flaky controller → Move to stable HBA; image each drive independently.

29. SAS expander/backplane faults → Direct-attach to HBA; ignore expander paths.

30. UEFI/CSM/storage mode change (AHCI↔RAID) → Correct mode for imaging; avoid writes.

31. Intel RST/AMD RAIDXpert faux-RAID issues → Image members; virtual rebuild from images.

32. TPM/BIOS update triggers BitLocker → Obtain recovery key; decrypt after imaging.

33. Faulty RGB/USB hubs injecting noise → Isolate storage buses; clean power for imaging.

34. PSU brown-outs under GPU load → Bench PSU; reattempt reads with clean power.

Logical / Partitioning / File Systems

35. Accidental deletion → Image; recover via metadata (NTFS MFT/APFS snapshots); carve.

36. Quick/full format → Deep signature scan; rebuild directory trees.

37. Partition table/GPT overwrite → Locate FS signatures; virtual re-map; mount RO.

38. NTFS $MFT/$MFTMirr corruption → Rebuild from $LogFile/$Bitmap; orphan recovery.

39. ReFS integrity stream faults → Export intact objects; catalogue repair.

40. APFS container/BTrees damage (Hackintosh/workstation) → Parse checkpoints; rebuild trees; resolve clones.

41. HFS+ catalog/extent issues (Mac-on-PC DAS) → Journal replay; catalog rebuild.

42. ext4 superblock/JBD2 faults (WSL/Linux) → Alternate superblocks; journal replay; inode rebuild.

43. XFS log corruption → xlog replay; inode/dir leaf repair.

44. VMFS/VHDX/VDI workstations → Rebuild descriptor/extent chains; export guest volumes.

Workflow / Content Layer / Security

45. Ransomware on desktop shares → Snapshot/version rollback (NAS/Windows), decrypt with valid keys only; salvage unencrypted extents.

46. chkdsk /f after crash → data loss → Roll journal; recover pre-fix records; carve.

47. Malware/PUA damages file headers → Structure-aware repair (Office/PDF/media).

48. Large media projects with broken containers → MP4/MOV moov rebuild; MXF index stitch; ProRes stream validation.

49. Scratch disk overflow (Adobe) → Rebuild catalogs; relink media; carve temporary workfiles.

50. User profile corruption / Windows upgrade rollback → Mount Windows.old; migrate profile; repair permissions.

Professional Recovery Process (Concise, Step-by-Step)

1. Diagnostics & Imaging — Stabilise hardware; connect through write-block; acquire sector-by-sector images using PC-3000, Atola, DeepSpar, or NVMe HBA. Originals remain untouched.

2. Firmware & Electronics Repair — ROM/adaptive transfers, service-area fixes, donor PCB/motor driver to regain stable reads.

3. Mechanical Interventions (HDD only) — Head-stack replacement, spindle/hub transplant, actuator/ramp service; immediate low-stress, head-mapped imaging.

4. Logical/Data Recovery — Partition & filesystem rebuild (NTFS, ReFS, APFS, HFS+, exFAT, ext, XFS, VMFS); content-aware repair (Office, photos, video).

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

Why Choose Maidenhead Data Recovery?

• 25+ years of desktop recoveries (HDD, SATA SSD, M.2/U.2 NVMe, SAS)

• Multi-vendor expertise across consumer, workstation and creator rigs

• Advanced tools & donor inventory (PCBs, head-stacks, HBAs, bridges) to maximise success

• Free diagnostics with clear, risk-aware recovery options before work begins