Frequently Asked Questions
We’re here to help 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Feel free to give us a call, send a text message or contact us through our contact form. If you can’t find the answer to a question here, please let us know and we’ll be happy to add the Q&A to our website.
- Contact us Anytime
- 24/7 Emergency Service
Satisfaction Guaranteed
General Issues FAQ
Your drive showing up in Disk Utility/Disk Management and with the correct storage size is a great sign! Now before reading along, please power down your drive and put it aside to prevent more damage while we provide you more information about the situation.
This issue is by far one of the most common issues we see here at Five Star Data Recovery. Here are some common causes:
- Drive has bad sectors or very faint signs of media damage.
- Drive is developing firmware corruption and is in the early phases.
- Drive was ejected improperly and the file system is damaged.
But the most important question here is, how do you get your data back? And the answer is simple. Contact the Professionals at Five Star Data Recovery or any other Data Recovery Professional. Please do not go in the direction of computer repair or IT companies. Yes they will be more affordable, but you are giving your data a 50/50 chance. If the situation is not too horrible, the computer repair company will be able to recover your data using software. If the situation is more severe, then the software that the computer repair company will use will spread the tiny microscopic scratch into a huge scratch, deeming the data unrecoverable even by professionals like ourselves. There is no way the software can know how serious the issue is until it tries to recover the data, but then it may be too late.
Professional Data Recovery labs like ourselves have special equipment that are designed to work with drives such as these and honestly with drives in even worse condition. This issue is really a walk in the park for us, as long as we get the case early enough. Once these cases have been to a repair company or IT professional and then come to us, its pretty much a salvage case where we’d be lucky to recover bits and pieces after all the damage.
Ejecting your drive improperly may have caused File System Corruption or possibly light media damage. Our best recommendation is to stop what you are doing and immediately bring your drive in for a free diagnosis.
IMPORTANT: Please do NOT attempt running First Aid or any other file system repair tools. This will only cause more serious irreversible damage to the drive. If you’d like to know more about why NOT to attempt this, please feel free to contact us anytime.
Please visit our YouTube channel for more detailed videos on common hard drive failure issues and why you shouldn’t try to recover the data yourself. Although sometimes it is possible for you to be able to recover data using software you can download from the internet, its not a good idea, especially in cases where the drive has had physical damage. As the internet is progressing and consumers are getting more accustomed to doing things themselves, we are seeing more and more cases becoming unrecoverable due to this. Consumers are downloading software to recover their data and in the process damaging the drives to a point beyond recoverability.
There are too many factors to take into account when attempting to recover data from a physically damaged drive. How did the drive fail? How much data was on the drive? What types of files are on the drive? What does the inside of the drive look like (this must be done by a professional in a clean room)? How is the condition of the read/write heads?
If your drive took a drop, bump, improper ejecting from the computer or any other physical damage, PLEASE DO NOT connect the drive to a computer and try using software to recover the data. We assure you this will cause the data on the drive to be unrecoverable. You can see hundreds of pictures on our Yelp and Instagram pages of deep scratches on platters caused by using software on drives with this type of damage. Software cannot skip these areas of media damage. It will just try to read these areas over and over again until it takes a tiny microscopic baby scratch and turns it into a huge gauge in the platters. When we have a small microscopic baby scratch, professional Data Recovery companies like ourselves can work with that and recover between 90-99% of the data, as long as we receive the case early enough. When we receive these cases after the customer has already played with it for hours with software, there is almost a 0% chance of getting the data.
At Five Star Data Recovery, we offer a FREE diagnosis. There is never a fee for us to take a look at the case and see if the data is recoverable. When we receive physically damaged drives early enough before the drive has been tampered with by consumers or computer repair shops, chances are we can recover the data without even doing any Clean Room repairs. Every case is different and requires a fair chance to be diagnosed by a professional. Call, Email, Text or Live Chat with us the moment you have an issue with your drive and we will be happy to provide the best Data Recovery Service possible.
If you are hearing beeping sounds coming from your drive, please power down the drive immediately.
The problem with your drive is called “Stiction.” This is where the read/write heads that are supposed to be parked on parking ramps have crashed on top of the platters, not allowing them to spin, and thus making a beeping like sound.
Please DO NOT attempt to repair this issue yourself by watching YouTube videos. This is a serious mechanical issue with your drive, and should only be attempted by professionals if the data is important and irreplaceable.
We have seen too many cases come in completely destroyed and unrecoverable due to Do it yourself data recovery attempts.
You should safely power down your drive at the first signs of any issues. Any unusual sounds coming from the drive could be causing irreversible damage to the platters (where the data is stored).
The drive will need to be opened in a Clean Room to get a better idea of recoverability.
You recently dropped, bumped, improperly ejected or mishandled your hard drive and now it’s making clicking sounds. Before you continue reading this post or do anything, PLEASE POWER DOWN the drive IMMEDIATELY and safely put it aside.
In order to understand this clicking sound, we first need to understand how a hard drive works. Inside the hard drive, we have platters (where the data is stored) and read/write heads (similar to needles of a record player). When we power on a hard drive, if we listed carefully we can hear the platters start spinning first, once they reach their full speed, the read/write heads come off of their parking ramps, hovering nanometers over the platters and start reading/writing the data from/to the platters. The heads never ever touch the platters. When the drive is safely powered down, the read/write heads go back on their parking ramps and only once they are safely off of the platters will the platters stop spinning.
So now that we have a basic understanding of how the drive works, we can try to envision what happens when we drop/bump/improperly eject a hard drive when its powered on. The heads are moving back and forth (nanometers about the platters), reading and writing to the platters as they are spinning at 7,000 rpm’s. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, the drive gets bumped/dropped/improperly ejected. The head (s) touch the platter (s) for split second making a scratch on the platters. As you try to access the data that is stored on that area where the scratch is, the head is becoming more damaged as its taking on pieces of shrapnel from the scratch. After multiple attempts to read with the damaged heads, the head eventually gives up and loses its ability to read and starts going back and forth over the platters hitting the middle of the disc, thus causing that clicking sound.
Once you hear the drive is clicking, IF the data is important, you should never ever try to make any attempts to recover the data yourself. Please don’t take the drive to a computer repair shop, an IT professional or a friend who is “good with computers.” We assure you, we’ve seen it all. It’s impossible for any of these people to be able to be of any help to you in this situation. Will they save you money if they could recover the data? Yes of course! But unfortunately, this is way out of their league. Every time someone powers on the drive to attempt to recover the data, they are just spreading that tiny little scratch and making it bigger, deeper and wider.
If your drive is making clicking sounds, power down the drive, safely put it aside and contact us or any other Professional Data Recovery Company. Data is extremely precious and not worth taking chances with. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by phone, text, live chat or email to answer any questions you may have.
There are many factors that determine whether the data will be recoverable. A few are:
- Type of storage device in the computer (hard drive or solid state drive).
- How long ago the files were deleted?
- Was the computer used after the files were deleted?
- If the computer was used, how much data was put back on the computer?
- Is the drive in the computer encrypted with Bitlocker or FileVault?
My drive is responding very slow. How can I fix the issue in order to move my data to another drive?
One of the most common issues with hard drives is the “Slow Responding” problem.
90% of the time, this is caused by some sort of firmware (programming) issue with the drive. The firmware of the drive gets damaged due to many reading errors (usually after some sort of physical damage to the drive or due to regular wear and tear).
Unfortunately this is not an issue that you can repair yourself. Special equipment, specifically PC-3000 is needed in order to access and repair the drives firmware, in order to get to the data.
You should safely power down the drive as soon as you realize the drive is slowing down. The sooner we receive the drive, the higher the chances of a good recovery.
Pricing FAQ
Our RAID Data Recovery prices are flat-rate per drive. We don’t charge any premiums to rebuild the RAID in order to recover the data. Our flat rate Data Recovery fees are the same as our single drive Data Recovery prices, $300.00 or $400.00 per drive, depending on the size of the drive. If any of the drives have mechanical issues, then the fee for that drive will be $650.00 or $950.00 (this is not very common for RAID systems, especially for RAIDs that are set up as a RAID 5).
Example A. You have a RAID 5 with 4 Hard Drives and each drive is 2TB, your total recovery fee would be $1,200.00. How this is broken down:
Drive 1 – $300.00 Flat Rate
Drive 2 – $300.00 Flat Rate
Drive 3 – $300.00 Flat Rate
Drive 4 – $300.00 Flat Rate
Total Recovery Fee – $1,200.00
Example B. You have a RAID 5 with 4 Hard Drives and each drive is 6TB, your total recovery fee would be $1,600.00. How this is broken down:
Drive 1 – $400.00 Flat Rate ($300.00 + $100.00 Surcharge for Drives Larger than 2TB)
Drive 2 – $400.00 Flat Rate ($300.00 + $100.00 Surcharge for Drives Larger than 2TB)
Drive 3 – $400.00 Flat Rate ($300.00 + $100.00 Surcharge for Drives Larger than 2TB)
Drive 4 – $400.00 Flat Rate ($300.00 + $100.00 Surcharge for Drives Larger than 2TB)
Total Recovery Fee – $1,600.00
Example C. You have a RAID 0 with 4 Hard Drives, Each Drive is 6TB, and one drive has bad read/write heads (clicking sounds). Your total recovery fee would be $2,150.00. Here is how its broken down.
Drive 1 – $400.00 Flat Rate ($300.00 + $100.00 Surcharge for Drives Larger than 2TB)
Drive 2 – $400.00 Flat Rate ($300.00 + $100.00 Surcharge for Drives Larger than 2TB)
Drive 3 – $400.00 Flat Rate ($300.00 + $100.00 Surcharge for Drives Larger than 2TB)
Drive 4 – $950.00 Flat Rate Clean Room Data Recovery Fee
Total Recovery Fee – $2,150.00
Yes, of course. We offer an Expedited Data Recovery Service for a $100.00 Flat Rate fee, paid upfront and non-refundable.
Our Expedited Data Recovery Service entails our Engineers start working on your case within 1-2 hours and the entire recovery process will be handled without any delays. It’s impossible to say how long the recovery will take, as every case is different, but we can assure you that there won’t be any delays at all. Once we diagnose the drive, we will contact you within 1-2 hours and let you know how long we believe the process will take.
IF your case is SUPER urgent, please look into our Expedited Plus Data Recovery Service. With our Expedited Plus Service, you will have a dedicated Engineer work on your case 24/7 without any downtime at all. This includes holidays and weekends.
Yes of course. Please contact us here or feel free to give us a call and we will do our best to be as helpful as possible. We understand that Data Recovery is not something that most people expect and the entire situation can catch us completely off guard financially. We offer flexible Data Recovery Payment Plan options to help you get your data recovered safely.
These payment plans are customized for each and every customer depending on their situation. So please do not hesitate to let us know how we can best help you.
Once the terms are clear and we come to an agreement, we will start working on your case immediately. Once the data is recovered we will send you a report of the recovery or you can come in to review the results. If approved, we will transfer the recovered data to your new drive and store it for you safely at our facility until the terms of the payment plan are fulfilled.
At Five Star Data Recovery, we won’t charge you a penny until the data is recovered and you are satisfied with the results.
The only upfront fees that could apply are “Expedited Service” or “Drive Cover Opened” fees. Our Expedited Service is optional and offered to those who need to have their data recovery as soon as possible without any delays. The “Drive Cover Opened” fee applies to any drive that has been opened by someone other than the Engineers here at Five Star Data Recovery (just to clarify, we are referring to the actual drive cover, where the platters are, not the enclosure of the hard drive).
Absolutely not. Five Star Data Recovery will never, ever charge you a penny if the data is not recoverable OR if you are not happy with the recovery results. We stand by our name and want to make sure you receive nothing but Five Star service. Regardless of how much time, effort or money we spend on your case, you will never pay a penny until you approve the recovery results.
The only cases that will have an upfront non-refundable fee are cases where the hard drive cover has been opened by someone other than us (just to clarify, we are referring to the actual drive’s cover, where the platters are, not the enclosure of the hard drive). The only reason we charge this fee is to cover the extra time our engineers have to spend on these cases to figure out what was done to the drive before it got to our lab. These cases are always more challenging and time-consuming.
Our USB Data Recovery fees are flat rate with no hidden fees or surprises. Our fees are $300.00 or $650.00, depending on the type of recovery (Logical vs Chip-Off).
Our Logical USB Data Recovery fee is $300.00. Examples of issues that fall under the logical data recovery category:
- USB Drive is recognized by the computer, but some of the files are missing
- USB Drive is recognized by the computer, but you accidentally deleted some files and need them recovered
- USB Drive is recognized by the computer, but you’re having problems copying the files off from the drive.
- USB Drive is recognized by the computer (disk utility or disk management) with the correct storage capacity, but it does not mount.
Our Chip-Off USB Data Recovery fee is $650.00. Examples of issues that fall under the “Chip-Off” Data Recovery Category:
- USB Drive is not recognized by the computer whatsoever (not by disk utility or disk management).
- USB Drive is recognized by the computer, but with an incorrect storage capacity.
- USB Drive is recognized by the computer, but every single file is damaged (not a single working file).
If you don’t see your specific issue here, please feel free to contact us and we will make sure to provide you a quote immediately and add the issue to our list.
Our Hard Drive Data Recovery fees are flat rate with no hidden fees or surprises. Our fees are $300.00, $400.00, $650.00, or $950.00, depending on the type of recovery (Logical vs Clean Room).
Our Logical Data Recovery Fees are either $300.00 or $400.00. 90% of the cases we deal with, fall under this category. Examples of issues that fall under the logical data recovery category:
- Hard drive powers on, spins, keeps spinning as usual, but does not mount on the computer.
- Hard drive shows up in Disk Utility or Disk Management, but you cannot access any of the files.
- Hard Drive mounts, you can see your files, but you keep getting an error message when you try to move the files to another drive.
- Hard Drive mounts, you can see your files and copy them to another drive, but the copying process is moving extremely slow.
- Hard Drive does not power on at all (this one is a 50/50. Sometimes the issues are electronic and still falls under our Logical Data Recovery pricing, and sometimes the issue is mechanical and falls under our Clean Room recovery pricing. We will do a free diagnosis and let you know the exact cost).
Our Clean Room Data Recovery Fees are either $650.00 or $950.00. Examples of cases that fall under the Clean Room Data Recovery category:
- Hard Drive powers on to a clicking sounds.
- Hard Drive powers on to a beeping sound.
- Hard Drive is making whirling sounds.
- Hard Drive was dropped or physically damaged and is now making unusual sounds.
If you do not see your specific issue here, please feel free to contact us and we will make sure to provide you a quote immediately and add the issue to our list.
Expect a price range between $300 and $950. Hard drive data recovery rates depend on the type of recovery you need. You can get a free diagnosis for your device to help you know the exact issue and what recovery measures you need.
Hundreds of Reviews. Nothing but Happy Customers.
Recent Cases
