It has been determined that access was lost to the data on the drive when the read/write heads was damaged to the point it could no longer read or write any data. The failure of the read/write heads looks to have been a gradual one, and was actually caused by corruption to the firmware modules on the PCB (electronics board). As these firmware modules became corrupted improper commands were being relayed to the read/write heads which over time caused them to read and write bad data, ultimately causing “physical” damage to where they could no longer function properly.

Initial diagnostics using our Data Extractor failed, and we then took the drive into our clean room to introduce new read/write heads. This was successful, but because of the firmware compatibility issues with this specific family of drives we were initially unable to extract any usable data. During the extraction process the engineering staff has had to constantly re-flash the firmware modules that control the movements of the read/write heads and only imaged using one head at a time until each platter surface was scanned. From these individual images we will form a single, composite image from which to extract the data.

This is a pioneering procedure that Fields has developed within the last several months and it is still very difficult and labor intensive, but extremely effective when standard scans may take months to complete. Because of this, the final price for this if you’d like to proceed and have the recovery completed will be $819.00 and the data returned on a set of DVDs. Please note that this is still a no-obligation quotation.

Please let me know if you have any questions, at all.
Regards,

Todd Taylor
Fields Data Recovery
Account Manager

1001 Craig Road
Suite 260
St. Louis, MO 63146

3) $800 is cheap, considering the time resources and parts required according to the report.

@BlackST @ck forget the actual condition of the HDD, i am asking if what he is writing even makes sense:

1) is it possible for firmware corruption to destroy the read/write head?

2) once he swapped heads why would he have to image a single head a time?

3) doesn't $800 sound to cheap for all that?

Don't forget that you are talking to customer service who's usually very far from technical details

£800 is a fair price for a professional in lab recovery service regardless of what the fault is in my opinion.