Headcrash

How to prevent consequential damage after a headcrash

We recommend not to try any recovery attempts on your own! Every time you power on the hard drive, the surface damages get worse and worse, which will minimize the chances for a successful hard drive data recovery.

• We cannot stress this enough: Do not power on the affected hard drive! A headcrash can lead to irreversible and sometimes fatal surface damages. The heads hover on an air cushion only a few nanometres above the magnetic surfaces with up to 15.000 revolutions per minute. If the air cushion is damaged - e.g. spots on the surface induced by a headcrash - the heads may start swinging and crash onto the magnetic layer of the hard drive, causing consequential damage. You can identify a headcrash based on unusual sounds: clicking, clacking, ticking or even grinding noises. Defective write/read heads may also cause fatal damages to the hard drive surfaces. 

• Do not open headcrashed hard drives. The handling and manipulation of headcrashed hard drives needs to happen only in cleanroom laboratories. Dust and other particles out of regular air have greater dimensions than the before mentioned air cushion. This can lead as a consequence to even more surface damages. Our experience shows that self-attempts almost always worsen the damage. The recovery of headcrashed hard drives exclusively occurs in our in-house cleanroom laboratories.

Clicking? Buzzing? Signs of a headcrash

You can identify a headcrash as follows:

• rhythmic clicking or ticking of the write/read heads
• buzzing or grinding sounds of the hard drive
• hard drive spins up shortly, clicks/ticks multiple times and then spins down again
• Folders are shown incompletely and files cannot be opened any more
• I/O errors or Input-/Output errors

Common causes for a Headcrash

• hard drive was dropped (with or without power)
• The notebook was ungently closed or even slammed shut
• Headcrash after a shock or heavy vibrations of the laptop or PC
• Temperature or air pressure fluctuations
• Wear and tear of the hard drive can cause a headcrash