- Drive could not be detected by the BIOS.
- Cannot read the drive or see a logical drive in file explorer.
- External hard drive stopped showing up on our desktop.
- Computer hard drive freezes up during its start up procedure.
If your hard drive is showing symptoms like the ones listed above, your hard drive could be suffering from firmware corruption.
The firmware area of the hard drive is a critical area on the internal discs and the ROM chip that allows you access to the user data. Without the original firmware code intact the data would be unrecoverable. The firmware is like having a key to a locked door, without it you aren’t getting in. In order to recover the data it is essential that the code be restored to the factory settings.
Professionals can argue about what causes this type of damage but it can range from something as simple as normal wear and tear or as complex bad sectors and unskilled use of data recovery software.
Overcoming a challenging problem like firmware corruption requires the use of a special machine that was designed to handle such a task called a PC3000. This machine gives us access to the code and lets us modify it to the desired result. Of course having a technician with enough programming experience is also an essential ingredient to achieving firmware restoration.
This is yet another type of hard drive failure that can lead to complete data loss if left in the wrong hands. Inexpensive services that claim to be professionals rarely have the equipment or even the knowledge to identify this type of problem. Once a hard drive fails there is an unpredictable amount of time you have before the hard drive degrades to a point where nothing can be done to recover the data. Your first choice in a data recovery service will often have the best chance for recovery.