The spindle had frozen solid — a platter transplant in the clean area got it spinning again to be imaged.
A home user's Gateway desktop drive had stopped spinning altogether, offering nothing but a faint hum on power. On it were the usual irreplaceables — documents and family photos. A drive that hums yet won't turn has almost always suffered a seized spindle motor: the bearings the platters ride on have effectively frozen solid. No amount of retrying or tapping will loosen it, and keeping it powered while it strains only endangers the heads, so the drive arrived untouched.
In our clean-air environment we confirmed the spindle wouldn't turn — a seized motor rather than a head or electronics fault. This is one of the more involved mechanical repairs, because a frozen motor can't simply be swapped in place: the platters themselves have to be transferred to a working drive, and that has to happen without disturbing their precise alignment.
We moved the entire platter stack into a matched donor drive with a healthy motor, using specialist tooling to hold the platters in perfect alignment as they went across — even a slight misalignment renders the data unreadable. With the platters turning again in the donor body, we imaged the rebuilt drive on a DeepSpar Disk Imager to keep the load gentle on a freshly-rebuilt mechanism, with the PC3000 to hand for firmware. A platter transplant is delicate, exacting work, and a small loss is normal even when it goes to plan.
From the image we rebuilt the file system and checked the user's documents and photos opened correctly before writing them onto modern media.
We recovered the drive's data and returned the user's documents and photos, seven working days on. As with any single-drive setup, the episode underlines the worth of a second copy — a seized motor gives no warning, and the only guard against it is having the data in more than one place.
DeepSpar DDI · PC3000 — imaging and recovery carried out in-house. Every job is imaged before any recovery work begins, and the original media is never written to.
Send us your device for a free diagnostic, and tell us a little about what happened — an engineer will review it and confirm your exact quote in writing before any work begins.
Getting your data back begins with getting the device to us. Pack it up safely, pop your contact details inside, and send it over — once we’ve run the free diagnostic, we’ll confirm your exact price in writing before any work starts.
Posting it? A tracked, insured service is what we’d recommend. Rather drop it in? You’re welcome Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm — just package the device up as above first.
Want a bit more detail first? Fill in the form with more about your issue and an engineer will review it and send you a custom quote.
We’ll be in touch shortly. For anything urgent, call 0191 406 1051.
Yes — from failed drives recovered in our clean-air environment through to logical faults like a corrupt partition table rebuilt off an image. The original drive is never written to.
From £300 plus VAT, with no fix, no fee on most jobs and a fixed quote before any work starts.
Don't format it, and stop using the PC. The data is usually still intact; it's the formatting, or carrying on using the machine, that risks losing it.
Start with an instant online quote, or call and talk it through with us first. You'll have a clear, fixed price before any work begins.