An industrial machine that would not start, and a hard drive whose value had nothing to do with the files on it. The control software was licensed to that hardware, so the job was not to recover data — it was to produce a disk the machine would accept as its own.
A factory called after one of their production machines stopped working. The PC driving it froze at the BIOS screen and never loaded its operating system. The machine had been running for years on a Hitachi 3.5-inch IDE drive of 40 GB — unremarkable hardware by any modern measure, and holding something that could not be replaced for less than £25,000.
That figure is the whole story. The control software running the machine was proprietary, licensed against that specific installation, and not something the manufacturer would simply reissue. Replacing the drive with a fresh Windows install and reinstalling the software was not an option available to them at any sensible price. What they needed was the original disk, working.
The drive was running noticeably hot and had developed bad sectors, several of them in the boot region — which explained the BIOS freeze precisely. The machine was trying to read structures it could no longer read, and simply stopping. Attempts to access the drive from another machine had been slow and had crashed partway.
Two things were in our favour. The platters showed no mechanical damage, so the data was intact rather than destroyed. And the failure was progressive rather than sudden, meaning there was still time to take a complete copy if it was done carefully and soon.
The requirement here was unusual. A normal recovery extracts files; this needed a sector-by-sector clone that the factory machine would boot from and treat as the original, with the operating system, configuration, licensing state and control software all in their original positions on the disk.
The drive was stabilised thermally first — a hot drive imaged under sustained load simply gets hotter and fails sooner. It was then imaged on legacy IDE hardware rather than through a modern USB bridge, which frequently mishandles drives of this era. Bad sectors were bypassed and logged rather than retried indefinitely, with the boot-critical regions read in short, careful passes and revisited until they returned consistent data.
The clone was written to a matched replacement drive and, crucially, tested in the factory machine itself rather than on a bench. That is the only verification that means anything here: a clone that mounts on a workstation but that the machine refuses to boot is not a result.
It started, loaded its operating system, and the control software ran as it had before.
The production line went back into service on a working drive, and the factory avoided a £25,000 replacement they had not budgeted for. The original Hitachi was returned to them but not returned to service — a drive with bad sectors in its boot region and a thermal problem will do this again.
The wider lesson is one industrial clients tend to learn expensively: the drive in a machine tool is usually the oldest component in the building, holds the most expensive thing in it, and is almost never in anyone's backup routine.
Industrial and laboratory equipment frequently runs on legacy drives holding software licensed to that specific hardware — where the disk is worth far more than the machine it sits in. If a production machine is freezing at startup or running hot, it is worth cloning while it still reads rather than after it stops. Single drives from £300 +VAT after a free 48-hour diagnostic.
Send us your device for a free diagnostic, and tell us a little about what happened — an engineer will review it and confirm your exact quote in writing before any work begins.
Getting your data back begins with getting the device to us. Pack it up safely, pop your contact details inside, and send it over — once we’ve run the free diagnostic, we’ll confirm your exact price in writing before any work starts.
Posting it? A tracked, insured service is what we’d recommend. Rather drop it in? You’re welcome Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm — just package the device up as above first.
Want a bit more detail first? Fill in the form with more about your issue and an engineer will review it and send you a custom quote.
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Usually, if the platters are undamaged. The drive is imaged sector by sector so the copy carries the operating system, configuration and licensing state in their original positions — which is what a machine expects when it boots from a replacement.
Because industrial control software is frequently licensed against specific hardware and not reissued cheaply, if at all. Cloning the original disk preserves the installation exactly, which is often the only route that does not involve buying the software again.
Yes, and legacy hardware is used rather than a modern USB adapter — those often mishandle drives of that era, reporting wrong geometry or failing to enumerate at all, which leads people to conclude a working drive is dead.
It adds urgency. Heat accelerates failure and a hot drive imaged under sustained load gets hotter still, so it is stabilised first and read in controlled passes. It also means the window for taking a clean copy is closing.
From £300 plus VAT for a single drive, quoted in writing after a free 48-hour diagnostic. Where the drive needs physical work there is a 50% deposit, with the balance due only on success.
Start with an instant online quote, or call and talk it through with us first. You'll have a clear, fixed price before any work begins.