Toshiba Data RecoveryToshiba manufactured only laptop (2.5″) and some SCSI drives until 2012. In the summer of 2012, it launched 3.5″ drives on the market, and at particularly competitive prices for their capacities (500GB, 1TB, 2TB & 3TB). In reality, these drives were produced by WD after the company’s agreement with WD.

However, Toshiba is still considered a leading company in the manufacture of 2.5″ drives.

In recent years, it has launched the MQ series drives, which are an excellent choice for regular use.

Specifically, the series started with the MQ01 prefix, with capacities of 320GB and above.
It quickly passed over the MQ02 and MQ03 models, releasing very few units, and launched the MQ04, which are SMR (Shingled) drives.

For the MQ04 family drives, data recovery is a real challenge, and very few companies in the world can truly support them, addressing the dozens of problems they present in the firmware but mainly in serious issues such as the 2nd translator.
For these drives, WP (Write Protect) is an absolute necessity and must be applied BEFORE any action is taken on the drive. Otherwise, the drive may make modifications to the 2nd translator that… are unwanted and unpleasant.
Unfortunately, very few companies have the know-how to handle these challenges of these specific models, resulting in many people losing their data.
At Northwind Data Recovery, we proudly say that we are among the first companies in the world to address these specific models in their entirety with great success.

Problems of Older Toshiba Hard Drives

The main problem that older Toshiba drives presented is the problematic lubrication of the motor in some 2.5″ models (usually the GAS & GAX). These problems appeared in drives manufactured from 2007 and later.
We received many drives with these symptoms:

Another common symptom of Toshiba drives is the presence of clicking sounds, knocks, etc. The drive spins up, and the heads hit with continuous or intermittent knocks. This is a sign of damaged heads, and for data recovery, experience, equipment, and a clean room are required.

Toshiba Drive Data Recovery

Toshiba drives also face some classic problems of 2.5″ drives. One of these is the sticking of the heads on the platters (STICTION). The heads normally park on a special ramp outside the platter area, but often after an error or improper shutdown, they fail or do not have time to return to the ramp and remain on the surface. Immediately after the spin down, the heads stick to the surface and cannot be released without the proper equipment and necessary experience. Do not open the drive yourself – you will damage the platters, and the drive will be unrecoverable.

However, it should be noted that stiction for Toshiba drives is rare, especially for the new MQ04 models.

In its laboratory, Northwind uses expensive cloning tools that can bypass the damaged parts of the surface and read the healthy data. This is usually the only method by which data recovery from Toshiba drives is possible.