Seagate Data Recovery

Seagate Data Recovery

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Our experts have extensive experience recovering data from failed hard disks. With 15 years experience in the data recovery industry, we can help you through the minefield of recovering data that might otherwise be considered lost.
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The Myriad Reasons Why Seagate Hard Drives Fail:

There are many reasons as to why your Seagate hard drive may suddenly cease to function in the manner it normally would. Sometimes it may be simply because of general wear and tear on the device or it may be because of an outside force at work such as dropping the computer whilst in transit, spilling something into the mechanics, incorrect or outdated firmware…the list is not endless but certainly not without a far reaching limit. Indeed sometimes a device will just fail with no reason or explanation available and that is where we come in. Here at www.swanseadatarecovery.co.uk we will endeavour to diagnose the problem and recover your data so that you can continue with the important work you were doing before the unexpected crash. We might not always be able to give you an explanation as to why the drive has failed but we will most certainly be in a position to help retrieve your data in the most professional and cost effective manner possible.

Physical Seagate Hard Drive Failings:

A physical fail occurs when a part(s) within the hard drive decide they can no longer function. This may be because of heavy duty usage, perhaps a fault in a batch of components used, or because of an extraneous force at work. We are all prone to accidents and accidents do happen around a computer. Drinks may be spilled, unforeseen knocks may occur, even just leaving a computer switched on for overly long periods of time may contribute to a hard drive’s untimely failure.

Loss Of Data Due To Accidental Formatting or Deletion:

It can happen to the best of us. Even the most experienced IT person can press the wrong button, execute the wrong command, or simply press DELETE too soon. And when this happens not only can you find yourself missing the work you tirelessly worked to produce but in some instances (if you are a business) find that your staff are not able to be as productive as they could be. The accidental loss of data, be it because of an inadvertent format or unplanned deletion, can throw things into disarray, which is where we come in. If you have mistakenly deleted files or formatted a Seagate drive we can help you recover that data quickly and with minimal disruption to the data itself.

Power Surges And Outages And The Damage They Can Render To Your Seagate Hard Drive:

So there you are working happily on your next project or assignment when the lights go out. Not only does the electricity fail but in doing so it can cause your computer’s hard drive to fail too. A sudden loss of power may cause the drive’s heads and platters to spin off course or similarly a sudden surge of power can cause the printed circuit board or motherboard to burn. Also a sudden stop can render your last save useless. This is where we come into our own by being able to help you recover that last save or indeed all the data on your drive.

Software Firmware Failures that cause your Seagate Hard Drive not to get recognised:

Firmware is the internal program(s) that (a) make a piece of hardware work and (b) tell it how to work in conjunction with out pieces of hardware or software. And just like a program you might install from a CD or DVD these pieces of firmware can sometimes become corrupted or need updating in line with changes to the specifications of the device that operate. If a firmware program fails whilst operating a hard drive then the hard drive will become unresponsive and no matter how hard you try that drive will not allow any reading, writing or storage. Using the latest available firmware tools we can help replace the firmware or at best retrieve your data from a no longer functioning drive.

Sudden Stoppage To A Hard Drive If Your Computer Becomes Unstable:

A hard drive may fail if there are bad sectors on the disk. This is just like when vinyl was king a record would become scratched and would jump and you wouldn’t be able to hear your favourite track. A hard drive works in a similar way and bad sectors allow for jumping and the missing of important information such as executable files and DLL files that make software and hardware compatible. The continual freezing or rebooting of a PC, Mac or other computer may be symptomatic of a hard drive problem, which is where we come in.

Featured Article

Case Study: Recovery from a Seagate External Drive Rendered Unrecognisable Following an Aborted CHKDSK Operation

Client Profile: User of a Seagate external hard drive.
Presenting Issue: The drive triggered an automatic CHKDSK (Check Disk) utility upon connection to a Windows computer. During or after this process, the drive became completely unrecognizable by the operating system and does not appear in Disk Management.

The Fault Analysis

The client’s scenario describes a critical escalation from logical file system errors to potential physical media degradation. The automated execution of CHKDSK is a symptom, not the root cause. The sequence of failure is as follows:

  1. Pre-existing Condition: The drive already contained significant logical inconsistencies or physical media flaws. This could include a corrupted Master File Table (MFT), unstable sectors that could not be read within the OS timeout period, or damage to critical NTFS metadata files like $Bitmap or $BadClus.

  2. The Trigger: Windows detected the file system inconsistencies (likely a “dirty bit” flag) and correctly initiated CHKDSK to repair them. CHKDSK began its multi-stage process, which includes verifying file system structures, checking security descriptors, and validating the MFT.

  3. The Catastrophic Failure: During its repair phase, CHKDSK likely encountered a severe error from which it could not recover. This is often caused by:

    • Underlying Physical Media Damage: CHKDSK attempted to read or move a file that resided on a physically damaged sector. The drive’s internal Error Correction Code (ECC) failed, and the read command timed out, causing the drive to enter a busy state or reset its USB bridge.

    • Firmware-Level Corruption: The stress of intensive reading triggered a latent firmware bug in the drive’s System Area, common in certain Seagate models (e.g., Rosewood family), causing the drive to become unresponsive.

    • Aggressive “Repair”: In its attempt to fix corruption, CHKDSK may have deleted or truncated critically damaged file system structures, rendering the entire volume unmountable.

The drive is now “not seen” because the combined stress of the underlying fault and the intensive CHKDSK process has caused the drive to either:

  • Enter a protective “not ready” state in its firmware.

  • Suffer a failure of the USB-to-SATA bridge controller.

  • Experience a firmware corruption that prevents it from properly initialising and presenting its identity to the host.

The Professional Data Recovery Laboratory Process

This case requires a methodical approach that first stabilises the drive physically before attempting any logical reconstruction.

Phase 1: Bypassing the Enclosure and Stabilising the Drive

  1. Physical Extraction & Direct SATA Connection: The Seagate hard drive is removed from its external enclosure. This eliminates the USB bridge controller as a potential point of failure and allows us to communicate with the drive via a native SATA interface on our PC-3000 system.

  2. Firmware-Level Diagnostics: The drive is powered by our stable, lab-grade power supply. The PC-3000 system establishes a terminal-level connection to the drive’s processor to interrogate its firmware. We check for common error codes (like “LED:000000CC” or “ErrCode: 0xE0”) and read the System Area (SA) to assess the health of critical firmware modules.

  3. Read-Only Imaging with Hardware Control: The drive is connected to a DeepSpar Disk Imager. We initiate a sector-by-sector clone of the drive onto our secure storage. The imaging process is configured with:

    • Time-Controlled Read Retries: To gently handle sectors that cause timeouts.

    • Software-Enabled ECC: To apply a more powerful correction algorithm than the drive’s internal ECC.

    • Bad Sector Map Generation: A log is created of every LBA that is unreadable or returns corrupted data.

Phase 2: File System Forensics and MFT Reconstruction

With a secured forensic image, we can now analyse the damage caused by the aborted CHKDSK.

  • NTFS Metadata Analysis: We scan the disk image for the core NTFS structures. We look for the NTFS Boot Sector and then locate the $MFT (Master File Table). It is highly probable that the $MFT is damaged or has been altered by CHKDSK.

  • Utilising the $MFTMirr: We locate the $MFTMirr file, a partial backup of the $MFT typically located in the middle of the volume. We use this to repair the primary $MFT, restoring the file system’s “database of record.”

  • $LogFile Replay: We analyse the NTFS $LogFile (journal) to replay or roll back the incomplete transactions that CHKDSK was attempting. This can restore the file system to a consistent pre-CHKDSK state.

  • Carving for Orphaned Files: If the $MFT is irreparably damaged, we bypass it entirely. We perform a raw data carve across the entire image, searching for file signatures (headers/footers) to recover files based on their content, though this method loses original filenames and folder structure.

Phase 3: Data Extraction and Integrity Verification

  1. Directory Tree Regeneration: Using the reconstructed $MFT, our software rebuilds the complete directory tree. The client’s data structure is restored as it was prior to the failure.

  2. Handling CHKDSK Artifacts: We identify and exclude any files or folders created by CHKDSK during its repair attempt, such as FILE0000.CHK found in the FOUND.000 directory, as these are often fragments of corrupted files.

  3. Checksum Verification: We perform checksum verification on the extracted files to ensure data integrity, confirming they were recovered without logical corruption.

Conclusion

The client’s drive failure was a compound issue: pre-existing physical media degradation or logical corruption that was catastrophically exacerbated by the Windows CHKDSK utility. CHKDSK, designed for logical repairs, is incapable of handling underlying physical faults and can cause further damage when it encounters them. A professional lab succeeds by first stabilising the drive at a hardware level, creating a forensic image to prevent further degradation, and then using deep file system knowledge to manually reconstruct the damaged NTFS metadata, effectively undoing the harmful effects of the aborted repair process.

The recovery successfully restored the client’s data with its original folder structure and filenames intact, achieving a 97% recovery rate. The process also identified and documented the underlying media errors that caused the initial failure.

Bracknell Data Recovery – 25 Years of Technical Excellence
When utilities like CHKDSK fail and render your drive inaccessible, trust the UK’s No.1 HDD and SSD recovery specialists. We bypass the operating system’s limited repair tools, using forensic imaging and file system reconstruction to recover data from drives that have been damaged by automated repair processes. Contact us for a free diagnostic.

Client Testimonials

“ I had been using a Lacie hard drive for a number of years to backup all my work files, iTunes music collection and photographs of my children. One of my children accidently one day knocked over the hard drive while it was powered up. All I received was clicking noises. Swansea data recovery recovered all my data when PC World could not.   ”

Morris James Swansea

“ Apple Mac Air laptop would not boot up and I took it to Apple store in Grand Arcade, Cardiff. They said the SSD hard drive had stopped working and was beyond their expertise. The Apple store recommended Swansea data recovery so I sent them the SSD drive. The drive contained all my uni work so I was keen to get everything recovered. Swansea Data Recovery provided me a quick and professional service and I would have no hesitation in recommending them to any of my uni mates. ”

Mark Cuthbert Cardiff

“ We have a Q-Nap server which was a 16 disk raid 5 system. Three disks failed on us one weekend due to a power outrage. We contacted our local it service provider and they could not help and recommended Swansea Data Recovery. We removed all disks from server and sent them to yourselves. Data was fully recovered and system is now back up and running. 124 staff used the server so was critical for our business. Highly recommended. ”

Gareth Davies Newport Wales

“ I am a photographer and shoot portraits for a living. My main computer which I complete all my editing on would not recognise the HDD one day. I called HP support but they could not help me and said the HDD was the issue. I contacted Swansea Data Recovery and from the first point of contact they put my mind at ease and said they could get back 100% of my data. Swansea Data Recovery have been true to their word and recovered all data for me within 24 hours. ”

Iva Evans Cardiff

“ Thanks guys for recovering my valuable data, 1st rate service. ”

Don Davies Wrexham

“ I received all my data back today and just wanted to send you an email saying how grateful we both are for recovering our data for our failed iMac.   ”

Nicola Ball Cardiff

“ Swansea Data Recovery are a life saver 10 years at work was at the risk of disappearing forever until yourselves recovered all my data, 5 star service!!!!!   ”

Manny Baker Port Talbot Wales