A LaCie Rugged that had started refusing files with an I/O device error — some opening, some not, and the drive taking longer to appear each time. On it was an A-Level student’s entire coursework, with the submission deadline approaching.
A student preparing for A-Level exams kept their coursework on a LaCie Rugged — the orange bumper being popular with students precisely because it survives being carried around. The drive began taking noticeably longer to be recognised, then started returning the Windows message “the request could not be performed because of an I/O device error” on some files while others still opened normally.
That mixed behaviour is characteristic and it is misleading. A drive that still opens most things feels like a drive that is basically working, so people keep using it — and every additional read of a weakening surface costs a little more.
An I/O device error is the operating system reporting that a read failed at the hardware level after the drive itself had already retried internally. The diagnostic found read/write head degradation — the heads were still flying but no longer reading cleanly — together with bad sectors that had begun to accumulate in areas holding file-system structures, which is why some files opened and others did not.
Critically, there was no physical damage to the platter surfaces. Nothing had been scored, and the data was all still present. That distinction set the expectation for the whole job: this was a drive that needed reading very carefully, not one that needed rebuilding.
Recovery software was not an option here. Scanning a drive already failing its reads means hours of sustained retrying on exactly the areas that are struggling, and it is a common way a recoverable drive is finished off.
Instead the drive was imaged sector by sector on a hardware imager with retry limits set deliberately low, sweeping the readable regions first to secure the bulk of the coursework before returning to the difficult areas. Bad sectors were bypassed and logged rather than allowed to stall the process, then revisited in later passes with longer timeouts and reads in both directions. Nothing was written to the drive at any stage.
The file system was rebuilt from the completed image. Documents and presentations were opened in their applications rather than counted — a coursework file that lists correctly but fails to open is worse than useless the day before a deadline. A small number of files needed repair where they spanned a bypassed region, and each was checked individually.
Everything came back: written work, research notes, presentations and the multimedia components of the project. The student submitted on time.
What made it straightforward was that they stopped using the drive when the errors started rather than persisting. On a drive with degrading heads and no surface damage, that decision is the difference between a full recovery and a partial one.
The message means a read failed at hardware level after the drive had already retried internally. Continuing to use the drive — or running recovery software over it — is hours of exactly the stress that turns degrading heads into a scored platter. Send external units complete with their enclosure. A single external drive is from £300 +VAT after a free 48-hour diagnostic.
Get the device to us for a free diagnostic and a quick note on what went wrong — an engineer looks it over and puts your exact quote in writing before anything is started.
The route to your data starts with the device reaching us. Box it up securely, tuck your contact details inside, and send it across — after the free diagnostic, we put your exact price in writing before a single step is taken.
Sending it by post? Go with a tracked, insured service. Prefer to bring it round? Our door is open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm — just pack the device as described above beforehand.
Prefer to get a sense of things first? Complete the form with a bit more about the fault and an engineer will look it over and send back a tailored quote.
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That a read failed at hardware level after the drive had already retried internally. It usually indicates degrading heads or bad sectors rather than a dead drive — and it means the drive should be taken out of use rather than retried.
Yes, and that mixed behaviour is the dangerous part. A drive that opens most things feels like it is basically working, so people keep using it — while every read of a weakening surface costs a little more.
No. Scanning means hours of sustained retrying on exactly the areas that are already struggling, which is a common way a recoverable drive is finished off. It needs imaging with controlled retry limits instead.
From £300 plus VAT for a single external drive, quoted in writing after a free 48-hour diagnostic. Send the unit complete with its enclosure rather than removing the disk.
Kick off with an instant online quote, or ring us and talk it through first. Either way you’ll know a clear, fixed price before any work starts.