My Laptop fell! What can I do?

Mobile computing devices such as a Laptop, notebook and an external hard drive receive many external impacts in the course of their lifespan. Most noteably the less trauma an external unit experiences is more beneficial to its longevity. For units not operating correctly there should be a few steps one should take prior to contacting a data recovery company unless mission critical data of the utmost importance is located on the drive. Using a professional data recovery expert would be more beneficial as to minimize data loss if that should be the case.

As for the Laptop or notebook a simple inspection is needed to determine if this step should even be followed. If there are any physical damages externally we strongly recommend to not even attempt to power up the device. If there appears to be no physical damage, remove the components such as the CD-Rom, battery, hard disk drive and floppy disk drive and reseat them. In many cases the chassis flexes and a shift occurs. This flexing or shift can unseat connectors and can pull them out enough to prevent a optimal connection. Reseatting the modules in the bays and inspecting the mount and connection points will ensure a solid fit.

For an external hard drive or hard disk drive there is not much more one can do besides a single power up attempt. If the unit clicks or does not mount there is a bigger issue and data loss could occur. The clicking sounds are a response to the heads not reading correctly either from the impact it experienced or a platter shift.

In a fall the heads can be damaged. The hard drive heads will impact the media cuasing a “tap” on the surface. If the read write head has failed, the banging effect from the head assembly slamming against the head stops shudders the thin metal gimble flexor and causes additional “taps” onto the media surface. Since the head is not reading correctly, it can duplicate the effects leading to physical media damage if power is constantly applied to the device.

The platter media or plated substrate can shift in a fall. The platters are placed into a spindle where there is some gapping. The platters are then torqued into place and the heads are installed to write the servo data. If a fall or impact happens on its side, this can shift the platters over biasing the media and causing a “data wobble”. This will prevent the hard drive head from locking on a location since the data at every 180 degree rotation is moving in and out and in no longer balanced. As hard drive’s increase in capactity, this problem becomes more pronounced as track density increases and the level of alignment is much greater. Contacting Disaster Recovery Group data recovery services or a professional data recovery company would be your only viable solution to recover the data.