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Mechanical failure · Platter damage

Hard Drive Head Crash Data Recovery

A head crash happens when a read/write head touches the spinning platter, and it often shows up as grinding, scraping, or sudden loud clicking. It's one of the most serious hard drive failures, and powering the drive off immediately is the most important thing you can do. We work on crashed drives in a cleanroom for one flat $1,200, and you pay nothing if we can't recover your data.

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$1,200 flat · pay on success
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Signs of head crash

  • •Grinding, scraping, or screeching noise
  • •Loud clicking that started suddenly
  • •Failed during or right after a drop or knock while running
  • •Rising read errors or bad sectors before it stopped working
  • •Detected but freezes or reads extremely slowly
  • •Stopped in the middle of use and won't come back

What’s actually happening

Read/write heads fly on a thin cushion of air a few nanometers above platters spinning thousands of times a minute. A head crash happens when a head touches the surface, whether from a drop or knock while the drive is running, a worn or failing head, or contamination inside the drive.

When that happens, the head can scrape away the thin magnetic coating that holds your data. The debris it creates spreads across the platters, damaging the other heads and more of the surface the longer the drive keeps running. That's the grinding or scraping sound, and it's why minutes matter.

Not every crash is the same. A light touch may leave a narrow damaged band while most of the surface is intact. A severe crash can leave deep, ring-shaped scoring where the magnetic layer is gone. Data in areas where the coating has been scraped away is physically gone and can't be read by anyone.

What not to do

  • ✕Don't leave it running or power it back on — every second a crashed head spins against the platter can scrape away more data.
  • ✕Don't run recovery software or disk checks — they force reads across the damaged surface and spread debris further.
  • ✕Don't open the drive to look — exposing the platters outside a cleanroom adds contamination to surfaces that are already damaged.
  • ✕Don't try to clean the platters yourself — improper cleaning can wipe off the magnetic layer and add new scratches.
  • ✕Don't move or bump the drive while it's powered — another jolt can cause more head contact.

How we recover it

1

Cleanroom inspection

Engineers open the drive in a cleanroom and examine each head and platter surface to judge how much damage there is and whether recovery is feasible.

2

Platter cleaning and head replacement

Where the surface allows it, debris is carefully removed from the platters, and the crashed heads are replaced with a matched donor set, since damaged heads can't be reused safely.

3

Careful, targeted imaging

Professional hardware imagers read the healthiest areas first, limit retries, and minimize time spent over damaged zones to protect the replacement heads. Heads can be swapped again if they degrade.

4

Reconstruction and verification

The file system is rebuilt from whatever could be imaged, so we can tell which files are complete. Recovered files are checked and returned on a secure return drive.

Can the data be recovered?

A head crash is one of the hardest failures to recover from, and outcomes range from a full recovery to none at all, depending on how much of the platter surface was damaged. Drives that were powered off right away often have far more readable surface than drives that kept running while grinding. Wide or deep scoring can make data unrecoverable, and in some cases only part of the data can be recovered. We'll tell you what we find after cleanroom inspection, and if we can't recover your data, you pay nothing.

Recovery by device

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Related guides

Hard Drive Hard Drive Clicking? Stop and Do These 5 Things First Hard Drive 7 Warning Signs Your Hard Drive Is About to Fail Hard Drive How to Recover Data from a Dead Hard Drive (Safely) Basics How Data Recovery Actually Works: A Complete Guide Basics Is Data Recovery Software Safe? When to Use It vs. Call a Pro Prevention The 3-2-1 Backup Rule: How to Never Need Data Recovery

Head Crash — common questions

How do I know if it's a head crash?+
A grinding, scraping, or screeching noise is the strongest sign, especially after a drop while the drive was running. Sudden loud clicking can also be a crash, though it's more often a head failure without platter damage. Only a cleanroom inspection confirms it, so power the drive off either way.
Can data be recovered from scratched platters?+
Sometimes. Data in the scratched areas is physically gone, but the rest of the surface may still be readable. How much can be recovered depends on how wide and deep the damage is and how long the drive ran afterward.
Could I get only some of my files back?+
It's possible. When parts of a platter are damaged, some files may come back complete while others are missing or incomplete. We check recovered files so you know what you're getting back.
Why can't the original heads be cleaned and reused?+
Heads that have touched the platter are almost always damaged or contaminated, and reusing them risks scraping more of the surface. They're replaced with a matched donor set before any imaging.
How much does head crash recovery cost?+
One flat $1,200 for a single device, quoted before you ship — no diagnostic fee, and $0 if we can't recover your data.

Other failures we recover from

Dropped Hard DriveWater DamageFire DamagePCB & Electrical Failure All failure types →

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