Data Recovery Case File · Trust, Practice & Honest Limits · Pricing a Head Job Honestly
Hard Drive Head Damage: What Does Recovery Actually Cost?
Her enquiry was one line and asked the question this trade is worst at answering plainly. "My hard disk's reading head is damaged and I want a data recovery. Please give me an idea of the price." She is entitled to an idea of the price, and this page gives her one — along with the honest explanation of why nobody can responsibly give her a binding figure from that sentence, and one important caveat about the diagnosis itself. Because "the head is damaged" is very often something an owner has been told, or has concluded from a noise, and it is not always what the drive turns out to have. That matters commercially: head damage sits at the expensive end of this trade, and the faults it gets confused with sit at the cheap end. Establishing which she actually has is the first thing worth doing, and it costs nothing.
| Media | Hard drive with suspected read/write head damage — diagnosis reported by the owner; drive not yet examined |
| Reported situation | Head damage believed to be the fault · owner requesting an indication of cost before proceeding |
| Fault class | Suspected head failure — confirmation required, as several cheaper fault classes present similarly; pricing determined by confirmed condition |
| Equipment used | Free assessment: Atola Insight Forensic current-signature and per-head diagnostics confirming or excluding head failure · donor matching where confirmed · laminar flow bench head service · PC-3000 Express with Data Extractor head-mapped imaging · fixed written figure issued before any work |
The decode: what sets the price, why a sentence isn't enough, and the cheaper possibilities
What a head recovery is actually made of: the cost is not arbitrary and it is not mostly profit. Four things drive it. A matched donor drive has to be sourced and bought, and it is consumed — its head assembly goes into her drive and the rest is scrap; scarce or discontinued models cost more and take longer to find. Skilled hours under filtered air: the drive is opened at a laminar flow bench, the failed assembly removed and replaced without touching the platters, which is precision work with no margin for a second attempt. Imaging time: a drive on replacement heads is fragile and slow, and reading it completely is a long supervised run rather than a copy-and-paste. And behind all three, the equipment and experience that make the second step survivable. That is why head recoveries are the costly end of the trade everywhere honest — and why a figure that looks surprisingly low deserves as much scrutiny as one that looks high.
Why the price varies so much between two head jobs: the specifics move it considerably. How many heads have failed — one head on a two-head drive is a different job from three on a six-head drive. Whether the platters are scored — a drive run for a long time on failing heads may have surface damage, which means a slower read and a partial result. Capacity, because imaging a modern high-capacity drive on replacement heads takes days rather than hours. And donor availability. Those are all properties of her particular drive, which is precisely why they cannot be known from a description.
The caveat that could save her a great deal: here is the part worth reading twice. Several faults are routinely mistaken for head damage, and all of them are cheaper. A service-area or firmware fault produces a drive that spins and never identifies itself — indistinguishable from head failure by ear, and resolved without opening the drive at all. A board fault looks equally dead. Even stuck heads, which sound alarming, may be freed with the assembly intact. So if her belief comes from a noise, a general shop's opinion, or an internet search, it is genuinely worth having confirmed before she budgets for the expensive road. A proper assessment establishes head condition per head by measurement, and it is free — and it not infrequently delivers good news.
What she should expect from anyone she asks: an indicative range from a description, offered honestly as an estimate; a free assessment to establish the real condition; then one fixed figure in writing, including VAT, before any work begins, which does not move afterwards. And on head work specifically, the terms should be stated plainly up front: because the donor is bought and consumed either way, 50% of parts and labour is payable upfront, with the balance due only on successful recovery. What she should be wary of is a firm quoting a confident fixed price for head work sight unseen, or one whose figure can grow later "depending what we find".
On the bench
The assessment came first and free, and its first job was to test her diagnosis rather than accept it: the Atola Insight Forensic read the drive's power-on current signature and assessed the heads individually, establishing which were working, which were weak and which had failed — the difference between a confirmed head job and a firmware fault wearing the same symptoms. With head failure confirmed, a matched donor was sourced, the assembly replaced under the laminar flow bench, and the rebuilt mechanism imaged head-mapped on the PC-3000 Express under Data Extractor — patiently, weak regions budgeted last. Her fixed written figure had been issued before the drive was opened, and the number did not change. The volume was verified from the image and delivered on fresh media.
The outcome
Head failure confirmed by measurement, the assembly replaced with matched donor parts, and the data imaged, verified and delivered at the figure agreed in advance. Free assessment, one fixed written figure including VAT, 50% of parts and labour upfront with the balance only on successful recovery. The honest answer to her question: head recoveries are priced on a consumed donor drive, precision hours under filtered air, and a long supervised imaging run — which puts them at the expensive end of this trade legitimately; the figure varies with how many heads failed, whether the platters are scored, the capacity and the donor's scarcity, none of which can be known from a sentence; and before budgeting for any of it, have the diagnosis confirmed, because firmware and board faults imitate head damage closely and cost considerably less.
Told your drive's heads are damaged and wondering what it costs
First, have the diagnosis confirmed — free — before you budget. Service-area faults, firmware problems and board failures all produce a drive that spins and won't identify itself, they're indistinguishable by ear from head damage, and they're all cheaper because nothing is opened and no donor is consumed. If heads really have failed, understand what you're paying for: a matched donor drive bought and used up, precision work under filtered air with no second attempt available, and a long supervised imaging run on a fragile mechanism. The figure moves with how many heads failed, whether the surfaces are scored, the capacity, and how scarce the donor is. Expect an indicative range from a description, then a free assessment, then one fixed written figure including VAT that doesn't change. On head work, expect a parts-and-labour deposit — and be wary of a confident fixed price given without the drive, or a quote that can grow later.
Have the diagnosis confirmed first — call Leeds Data Recovery on 0113 322 3083; free per-head assessment, one fixed written figure including VAT, 50% upfront and the balance only on success.
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Our case files are drawn from genuine enquiries received by our laboratory over the past ten years, anonymised to protect client confidentiality. Each one describes the diagnostic and recovery procedure our engineers apply to that fault, using the equipment listed.