Norwich Computer Desktop Hard Drive Data Recovery

Norwich No.1 Desktop Computer Hard Disk Recovery Specialists

With 25+ years’ experience, Norwich Desktop Computer Drive Data Recovery provides professional recovery for all desktop makes, models and storage faults. From everyday SATA hard disks to enterprise-class NVMe and SAS SSDs, we handle mechanical, electronic, media and logical failures with a rigorous, read-only, forensic workflow.

Free diagnostics as standard, plus an optional Critical Service (typically 48 hours) for urgent cases.

Supported Desktop Manufacturers (UK) — 25 Brands & Popular Series

(Examples of widely sold UK desktop lines we recover from. If yours isn’t listed, we still support it.)

1. Dell — OptiPlex 3000/5000/7000, XPS Desktop, Alienware Aurora

2. HP — ProDesk 400, EliteDesk 800, Pavilion Desktop, OMEN 25L/40L

3. Lenovo — ThinkCentre M70/M75/M90, IdeaCentre 5, Legion Tower T5

4. Acer — Aspire TC, Veriton M/S

5. ASUS — ExpertCenter D5/D7, ROG Strix G/Tower

6. Apple — iMac, Mac mini, Mac Pro (tower/rack)

7. MSI — PRO DP, MAG Infinite, MPG Trident

8. Gigabyte — AORUS Model X, BRIX SFF

9. Intel — NUC 11/12/13 series

10. Fujitsu — ESPRIMO D/P series

11. Medion — Akoya, ERAZER

12. Zoostorm — Evolve/Delta series

13. Chillblast — Fusion/Phantom series

14. PC Specialist — Vortex/Blaze series

15. CyberPower UK — Infinity series

16. Novatech — Pro/Elite series

17. Scan 3XS — 3XS Workstations/Gaming

18. Overclockers UK — Titan series

19. Stone Group — Stone Desktop/Workstation

20. Viglen (XMA) — Viglen Desktop/Workstation

21. RM Education — RM Desktop/All-in-One

22. Shuttle — XPC SFF barebones

23. ASRock — DeskMini/DeskMeet

24. Corsair — ONE i/ONE a

25. MEDION/Lenovo SFF AIOs — common retail AIO/mini desktops

Interfaces We Recover (Consumer, Enterprise & Legacy)

ATA family: SATA I/II/III (1.5/3/6 Gb/s), PATA/IDE (40/44-pin), mSATA
SCSI family: SAS 3/6/12 Gb, Parallel SCSI (Ultra/Ultra160/Ultra320), SCA backplanes
PCIe/NVMe: PCIe add-in cards (AIC), NVMe (Gen3/Gen4/Gen5), M.2 (B-key, M-key, B+M), U.2 (SFF-8639), U.3, mini-SAS (SFF-8087/8643/8654)
Enterprise interconnects: Fibre Channel, SAS expander backplanes, SATA DOM
External/bridge: USB 2.0/3.x/3.2, Thunderbolt 1/2/3/4, eSATA, FireWire 400/800
Other/legacy (supported for data extraction): ZIF PATA, SATA Power 3.3 V-pin impacted drives, proprietary OEM blades/modules.

File Systems & Volume Technologies

NTFS, ReFS, exFAT, FAT32, ext2/3/4, XFS, Btrfs, HFS+, APFS, ZFS, LVM/MD RAID, Windows Dynamic Disks, Storage Spaces, Apple Fusion, BitLocker, FileVault, LUKS/dm-crypt.

Common Failures We Recover From

Physical: head crashes, spindle/motor faults, platter damage, PCB/TVS burn, firmware corruption
Media: bad sectors, weak heads, surface wear, SMR write-hole, SSD NAND wear, controller faults
Logical: accidental deletion/formatting, partition loss, unsupported FS, database corruption
System-level: drive not recognised, BIOS/UEFI errors, overheating, failed rebuilds, encryption issues

Top 50 Desktop HDD/SSD Faults — and How We Recover (Technical)

Principle: We image first to a forensic clone using hardware imagers (head-map, read budgeting, ECC controls). All repairs are the minimum necessary to obtain a safe, complete image; logical repair is performed on the clone only.

A. Mechanical & Magnetic (HDD)

1. Head crash/media contact → Matched-donor HSA swap (micro-jog/adaptives), calibrate, image per-head with slow-start & short-retries.

2. Weak/degrading heads → Adjust preamp gain/read channel; head-map imaging prioritising healthy heads; selective re-reads.

3. Stiction (heads parked on platter) → Free HGA, inspect contamination, replace heads if needed; cold-image with rest cycles.

4. Spindle seizure/bearing lock → Chassis/motor transplant with servo alignment jigs; verify SA, then zoned imaging.

5. Platter run-out/misalignment (drop) → Donor motor swap, PES tuning; image in radial passes with temperature control.

6. Helium leak (He drives) → HDA swap (where viable), pressure-stabilised short-burst imaging; isolate failing head.

7. Translator corruption → Rebuild LBA↔PBA translator from SA modules; if partial, compute synthetic translator and image by physical addressing.

8. Grown defect (G-list) bloat/slow issue → Vendor terminal procedures to bypass/compact lists; head-zoned imaging.

9. Service Area (SA) module damage → Read alternate SA copy; patch module tables (DIR, adaptives), checksum repair; soft-reset and image.

10. ROM/adaptive loss → Extract SPI ROM, port adaptives (head map, micro-jog, bias), re-flash loader/ROM; regain SA access.

11. Preamp failure → Diagnose by current signatures; HSA swap; conservative imaging with re-read budgeting.

12. Media scratches/rings → Identify bad tracks; skip-range imaging, multi-pass with outer-in strategy; carve files from partial image.

13. NCQ timeout/BUSY lock → Disable features, set conservative timeouts; PIO-like imaging with queue depth 1.

14. 0 MB/0 LBA capacity → Clear firmware flags, regen translator; switch to loader microcode; image.

15. SMR write-hole/sluggishness → Force sequential imaging, disable background GC; extend timeouts; post-process file-system journal.

B. Electronics & Power (HDD)

16. PCB failure/TVS diode short → Replace TVS/regulators; transplant ROM; verify power rails; image.

17. Power surge/ESD damage → Component-level repair (drivers, MCU supplies), ROM transfer; SA health check.

18. 3.3 V power-disable pin issue (WD/others) → Isolate 3.3 V rail or adapt cabling; then standard imaging.

19. Firmware bug (vendor-specific slow/freeze) → Terminal scripts to disable background scans; per-head target imaging.

20. Password/ATA security lock → Authorised unlock with proof of ownership; image sector-by-sector.

C. SSD/NVMe Faults

21. Controller failure (SATA/NVMe) → NAND chip-off or on-board read; rebuild FTL with vendor ECC/XOR/LDPC; assemble raw image.

22. FTL/map corruption → Recover mapping from metadata/journals; heuristic page ordering; validate via FS signatures.

23. DRAM-less/cache failure → Emulate/bypass cache; if not possible, direct NAND reads and offline reconstruction.

24. PMIC/power-rail burnout → Replace PMIC/regulators; if controller remains dead, proceed with chip-off.

25. NAND wear/retention loss → Voltage stepping, read-retry matrices; cold imaging; multi-pass ECC margining.

26. Bad block explosion/read disturb → Identify weak dies; per-plane reads; ECC correction & block remap in reconstruction.

27. Firmware safe-mode → Load recovery microcode, export raw namespaces (NVMe admin cmds), build image.

28. Namespace/metadata loss (NVMe) → Dump NVMe identify/NS data; carve APFS/NTFS from raw; rebuild GPT from signatures.

29. Connector/M.2 pad damage → Micro-wire to test pads; AIC adapter; stabilise link for full image.

30. Thermal throttling/link flaps → Clamp PCIe speed, aggressive cooling; staged imaging with pause/resume strategy.

31. Self-encrypting SSD (TCG Opal) → Requires valid credentials/keys; otherwise chip-off yields encrypted noise—advise feasibility.

32. Power-loss during write → Reconcile partial pages via FS journals (NTFS log file, APFS checkpoints), repair on clone.

33. Over-provisioning/hidden areas → Include reserved ranges in imaging; post-process to expose remapped user LBA set.

34. Wear-levelling metadata loss → Brute-force page ordering + BCH/LDPC checks; validate against file-system artefacts.

35. Controller-initiated RO mode → Image at imposed limits; avoid any writes to prevent GC/retire events.

D. Logical, Partitioning & File-System

36. Accidental deletion/quick format → Journal-aware recovery; MFT/B-tree rebuild; signature carving with path/metadata salvage.

37. Partition table/GPT loss → Rebuild from backups and FS headers; create synthetic GPT on clone; verify mount RO.

38. Boot sector/MFT mirror damage (NTFS) → Recreate from $MFTMirr; fix bitmap runs; export validated files.

39. ReFS metadata damage → Volume header repair, integrity-stream handling; salvage via object-table traversal.

40. ext4 superblock/inode table issues → Use backup superblocks; fsck-like offline rebuild on clone; recover orphaned inodes.

41. XFS log/journal replay failure → Manual log replay on image; btree scrub; directory rebuild.

42. APFS container/omap failure → Recover from checkpoint superblocks; stitch snapshots; mount RO for copy-out.

43. HFS+ catalog/extent B-tree corruption → Rebuild trees; carve from allocator patterns where incomplete.

44. Time-series/database corruption (Outlook PST, Photos, VMs) → Structure-aware extraction; salvage large sparse files.

45. BitLocker/FileVault/LUKS → Full-disk imaging, then decrypt with valid keys; key-bag unlock; read-only export.

E. System-Level, RAID & NAS

46. Drive not recognised/BIOS error → Link-layer diagnostics; alt-mode imaging (PIO-like), disable NCQ; proceed to logical repair.

47. Overheating/thermal shutdown → Stabilise thermals; staged imaging with rest cycles; prioritise weak areas early.

48. Failed RAID rebuild (0/1/5/6/10) → Image members, detect order/stripe/offset/parity; compute virtual array; repair FS.

49. USB/Thunderbolt bridge faults → Bypass enclosure; attach bare drive; firmware translate if bridges mask problems.

50. Malware/crypto-locker on attached storage → Forensic snapshot, verify clean backups; decrypt where possible with keys; otherwise salvage pre-encryption data.

Our Recovery Workflow

1. Free Diagnostic – Symptom triage, interface & encryption assessment, feasibility plan.

2. Forensic Imaging First – Hardware imagers with head-maps, timeouts and ECC control; no writes to your original media.

3. Firmware & Electronics Repair – ROM transfers, firmware patching, donor PCB/part swaps to restore access for imaging.

4. Mechanical Interventions – Head-stack replacements, platter/motor swaps and alignment in controlled lab conditions.

5. Logical/Data Recovery – File-system reconstruction (NTFS, HFS+, APFS, ext, XFS, ReFS, exFAT, etc.) and metadata repair on the clone.

6. Verification & Delivery – Hash verification, sample-file testing, and secure data transfer (encrypted drive or secure download).

Why Choose Norwich Data Recovery

• 25 years in business with thousands of successful recoveries

• Multi-vendor expertise – consumer, workstation and enterprise storage (HDD/SSD/NVMe/RAID)

• Advanced tooling & donor inventory to maximise success rates

• Clear options before work begins, free diagnostics, and optional ~48-hour Critical Service (case-dependent)

Start Your Recovery

Contact Norwich Data Recovery today for your free diagnostic.
When every hour counts, ask about our Critical Service (typically 48 hours). We’re your trusted partner in desktop hard drive and SSD data recovery.