Wildfire case archive · Electrical failure · Level 3
3TB Hard Drive Power-Surge Recovery Case Study
A power surge left a 3TB desktop hard drive completely unresponsive. The fault involved a blown protection diode and a failed motor controller.
A complete image and verified recovery were recorded for this job.
What failed
A power surge left a 3TB desktop hard drive completely unresponsive. The fault involved a blown protection diode and a failed motor controller.
The recovery work
The drive’s original ROM information was transferred to a compatible donor board. The drive could then be imaged end to end.
The client had been considering buying a matching board. The important part of the recovery was preserving the original drive-specific information, rather than assuming a board with the same printed number would be interchangeable. The platters were left untouched in this case.
What the result means
A complete image and verified recovery were recorded for this job.
This was the result for one assessed drive. It is not a recovery guarantee for another device with similar symptoms. The original summary does not provide a turnaround time or a historical invoice, so neither is inferred here.
If your drive has a similar problem
Keep the original board and any detached components. A dead drive can have more than one fault; assessment establishes whether electronics work can restore readable access.
How a similar job is quoted today
The current Level 3 guide is $350 + GST upfront and $350 + GST only upon success: $700 + GST ($770 including GST) in total if successful. This is today’s guide, not the historical invoice for this case.
Your priority files, the condition of the device and the required work define the written scope. Any success fee depends on meeting the agreed recovery criteria.
Source: Wildfire’s existing published recovery-case summary. Laboratory photographs are labelled as illustrations. Published by Wildfire Data Recovery.