The context
Marc, a professional photographer in Brussels, uses a WD Blue 2 TB external hard drive as a backup of his archives. One evening, the drive emits a characteristic repeated click and disappears from the computer. The reflex — plugging and unplugging several times to "see if it works again" — is exactly what you must not do.
The click signals a read-head failure: they can no longer position themselves and try to recalibrate in a loop. Each additional power-up risks scratching the platters, where the data is written. At this stage, everything depends on stopping immediately.
The intervention
Free diagnosis: heads dead, platters apparently intact. Recovery requires a head transplant in an ISO 5 cleanroom, where filtered air prevents a dust particle from causing a head crash on the exposed platters.
- Search for a strictly compatible donor drive (same model, same revision) in our stock of over 20,000 parts.
- Under laminar flow, replacing the head stack with dedicated tools, with no contact with the magnetic surface.
- Reassembly, brief power-up, then controlled imaging: priority reading of healthy zones, short passes on difficult sectors, thermal management.
- All work done on the image, never on the original drive.
The result
In 72 hours, 1.94 TB out of 2 TB was recovered — nearly the entire archive, the few missing files corresponding to sectors already damaged before arrival at the lab. Return on a new encrypted drive after VeriFiles approval. Cost: €650 excl. VAT (HDD fee with cleanroom intervention).