Frequently Asked Questions

Before deciding to use a data recovery service to recover your data, many of our customers have questions regarding what went wrong or why did they lose data.
Here in the FAQ section, we have added some of the most common questions that we have been asked and you may be able to find your answer here.

For general data recovery questions, please click here.

If not, please contact us by telephone or email and we will be glad to answer any questions you may have.

My seagate drive is spining with no clicking noise but is not seen by BIOS. Whats the likelihood of recovery. A: It looks like there is a fault in the drive service area (firmware), or a physical damage in the drive internal electronics. In both cases we should be able to recover your lost data.   I am getting the error message: Medium Error from my Seagate SCSI drive. Can you recover it? A: The Medium Error SCSI Sense Key message Indicates the command terminated with a nonrecovered error condition. Data Recovery Direct has developed the required tools to recover data from such drive faults.

Unfortunately whilst defragmenting my Maxtor hard drive a blue screen appeared stating that windows had been stopped. When rebooting my system the bios ran its start up check but the operating system would not load. A: It looks like the heads unable to read from the drive, or there is a large volume of bad sectors. We recommend you send the drive to us for inspection.   When I try to boot my PC I get the following error message "Drive is not ready and the system is halted". My PC installed with 40GB Maxtor hard disk. A: Usually this error message comes up when the BIOS doesn't recognize the Hard Drive. Try to check the cables/connectors or try to connect the drive to another PC before you send your drive for data recovery.

Why is my hard drive making a grinding noise? A: Please turn off your computer immediately to save further damage! This is an internal problem and needs special data recovery procedures to save your data. Contact us if this is your situation.

Why is my hard drive making a grinding noise? A: Please turn off your computer immediately to save further damage! This is an internal problem and needs special data recovery procedures to save your data. Contact us if this is your situation.

Why is my hard drive making a grinding noise? A: Please turn off your computer immediately to save further damage! This is an internal problem and needs special data recovery procedures to save your data. Contact us if this is your situation.

I have a Hitachi IDE HDD 80G laptop disk and I can't access the drive. It makes a strange sound, like a clicking sound and hitachi says that its hardware failure. I wanted to know what the cost would be to recover the data? A: In most cases the answer is YES as we hold more than 98.3% success rate on Hitachi/IBM laptop drive recoveries.

Why is my hard drive making a grinding noise? A: Please turn off your computer immediately to save further damage! This is an internal problem and needs special data recovery procedures to save your data. Contact us if this is your situation.

Why is my hard drive making a grinding noise? A: Please turn off your computer immediately to save further damage! This is an internal problem and needs special data recovery procedures to save your data. Contact us if this is your situation.

Why is my hard drive making a grinding noise? A: Please turn off your computer immediately to save further damage! This is an internal problem and needs special data recovery procedures to save your data. Contact us if this is your situation.

Why is my hard drive making a grinding noise? A: Please turn off your computer immediately to save further damage! This is an internal problem and needs special data recovery procedures to save your data. Contact us if this is your situation.

I tried to change the power circuit board for my "dead" Toshiba 80GB laptop drive with another one from an identical drive but I couldn't get it to work. Can you help? A: Most of hard disk drive have a unique power circuit board, therefore, changing the power circuit board wont resolve the problem. Please send us your drive with its original power circuit board and we should be able to get your data back.

Why is my hard drive making a grinding noise? A: Please turn off your computer immediately to save further damage! This is an internal problem and needs special data recovery procedures to save your data. Contact us if this is your situation.

Why is my hard drive making a grinding noise? A: Please turn off your computer immediately to save further damage! This is an internal problem and needs special data recovery procedures to save your data. Contact us if this is your situation.

Why is my hard drive making a grinding noise? A: Please turn off your computer immediately to save further damage! This is an internal problem and needs special data recovery procedures to save your data. Contact us if this is your situation.

Why is my hard drive making a grinding noise? A: Please turn off your computer immediately to save further damage! This is an internal problem and needs special data recovery procedures to save your data. Contact us if this is your situation.