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External & portable drives

External Hard Drive Recovery for one clear price

External drives fail more than any other — they get dropped, unplugged mid-write, and worn out as everyday backups. We recover portable and desktop externals of every brand for one flat price.

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$1,200 flat · pay on success

✓Free prepaid shipping both ways

✓ISO Class 100 cleanroom recovery

✓$0 if we can’t recover your data

✓Secure chain of custody

About external hard drive recovery

An external hard drive is usually an ordinary internal drive inside an enclosure, connected through a small USB bridge board that translates between USB and SATA. Larger desktop externals typically hold a 3.5-inch drive and use a separate power adapter. Many portable drives are built differently: the USB connector is part of the drive's own circuit board, with no standard SATA interface, so the drive cannot simply be moved into another enclosure or plugged into a computer directly.

Some externals, including many Western Digital models, encrypt data in the bridge board itself, even when the owner never set a password. If that board fails, the drive's contents look like random data when connected any other way, and decryption depends on the original electronics or the key information they hold. That is one reason swapping enclosures or boards yourself can make a recovery harder rather than easier.

Externals also take the most physical abuse. Being knocked off a desk while running, unplugged in the middle of a copy, or used for years as the only backup are all common paths to clicking, beeping, a drive that won't spin up, or a drive that suddenly asks to be formatted.

What we recover

✓Photos, video footage, and archives
✓Backups and Time Machine data
✓Documents and project files
✓Data from encrypted external drives (with your key)

Common failures we handle

•Drive not recognized or won't mount
•Clicking, beeping, or not spinning up
•Dropped while running
•Asks to be formatted / shows as RAW

Before you send it in: what not to do

✕Don't keep plugging a clicking or beeping drive into different computers — each attempt can deepen head or motor damage.
✕Don't format the drive when your computer offers to — formatting writes a new file system over the one we need to rebuild.
✕Don't pull the drive out of its enclosure to connect it directly — on encrypted models the bare drive won't be readable, and portable drives often have no standard connector at all.
✕Don't throw away the enclosure, USB board, or cable — on some models the original board is needed to decrypt the data.
✕Don't keep using the drive for new files while trying to fix it — new writes can overwrite deleted or damaged data.

How we recover it

Identify the design

We determine whether the bridge board is separate or built into the drive, and whether hardware encryption is in use, before attempting anything.

Address the physical fault

Broken connectors, failed boards, and stuck or damaged heads are repaired as needed, with any work inside the drive done in the cleanroom.

Image the drive

We copy the drive sector by sector through a controlled interface, handling weak areas carefully so the drive isn't pushed past its limits.

Decrypt and extract

Where the enclosure encrypted the data, we work with the original electronics to decrypt the image, then rebuild the file system and recover your files, including backup sets such as Time Machine.

Verify and return

We check that recovered files open correctly, then copy them to a secure return drive and ship it back to you.

Failures we handle

Dropped Hard Drive →Clicking Hard Drive →PCB & Electrical Failure →Encrypted Drive →

How it works

Confirm online

Approve the flat $1,200 rate. No charge today.

Ship it free

We email a prepaid label — inbound shipping on us.

We recover

Certified engineers work your case in our ISO cleanroom.

Pay on success

Charged only when your data is back.

Related troubleshooting guides

External Hard Drive Recovery — common questions

How much does external hard drive recovery cost?+

One flat $1,200, quoted before you ship — no per-gigabyte fees and no diagnostic charge. You pay $0 if we can't recover your data.

My external drive was dropped. Is the data gone?+

Not necessarily. A drop while the drive was spinning often damages the read/write heads and can scratch the platters, which calls for cleanroom work. Drops while it was off are often less severe. How much can be recovered depends on whether the platter surfaces were damaged, which can only be judged after diagnosis, so stop powering it on.

The USB port on my drive broke off. Can you recover it?+

Often, yes. On drives with a separate bridge board, the drive inside is usually unaffected. On portable drives where USB is built into the drive's own board, the connector or board has to be repaired, which is delicate but frequently possible. Please don't try to solder or glue it yourself.

Can you recover Time Machine or other backup drives?+

Yes. Backup drives are recovered like any other external drive. Time Machine keeps multiple backups over time, so depending on the drive's condition we can often return the most recent version of your files, and sometimes earlier versions as well.

Is my data still recoverable?+

In most cases, yes. A device that won't boot or mount usually has a hardware fault while the data itself is intact. The key is to stop using it — don't reformat, rebuild, or keep powering it on — and let our cleanroom handle it.

Do I have to visit a location?+

No. We're mail-in: confirm online, we email a free prepaid label, you ship the device, and we return it with your recovered data. You only pay on success.

How long does it take?+

Most single-device cases finish in about 15–20 business days from arrival, with shipping adding only a day or two on each end.

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Recover your data for one clear price.

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