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CDR / Work we specialise in / HP PC and laptop recovery

Specialist work · HP PCs & laptops

HP PC recovery in Cardiff. The 301 halt is the BIOS refusing to boot, not a verdict on your files.

An HP that will not start, anywhere in Cardiff, gives you a code and very little else. Hard Disk 1 (301) points at the drive's own SMART data. 3F0 says the BIOS found nothing to start from, which covers a dead disk and a damaged boot partition equally comfortably. A blue screen part-way through loading is a third thing again. What you should do next depends on which of them you have, and the screen will not tell you. Leave the machine off, note the wording exactly, and refuse every offer to reset it.

No files back, no fee on most jobs One fixed price, after a free diagnosis It comes to us by post from Barry, Pontypridd or Newport

Describe the symptoms to an engineer
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What each symptom is telling you.

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What shows upWhat has gone wrongDo this now
Hard Disk 1 (301) at the HP logoThe drive's own SMART counters have gone past what the BIOS allowsTake the warning at its word and stop
Boot Device Not Found — Hard Disk (3F0)Either the disk is not being seen, or the boot files on it are brokenDo not reinstall to find out which
Clicking, or a faint repeated tickHeads or platters; every restart from here takes a little more off itCut the power now, not later
Windows asks for a BitLocker recovery keyEncryption is on and the TPM will not release the keyLook the key up before you post it
F11 offers to restore the machineThat partition holds a factory image, not yoursDo not run it
A thin HP with no drive to take out of itThe storage is soldered to the mainboard, as on the StreamRing us before you post it — that one has to travel whole
Posting it to us: post it tracked and fully insured to the intake lab, and the journey back is on us; ring first if you would like an engineer to check how it is packed before you seal the box. Every stage is set out on the posting guide.

Why the HP code on the screen will not settle it.

One code, several causes301 and 3F0 are messages from the BIOS, not diagnoses. A 3F0 turns up on a drive that has stopped being seen, on a damaged boot sector, and on a machine somebody has switched into RAID mode without meaning to. The screen cannot separate those; reading the disk on other hardware can.
SATA, M.2 and soldered eMMCOlder Pavilions and ProBooks carry a 2.5in SATA disk in a caddy, out with two screws. Later ones use an M.2 card, usually NVMe and occasionally SATA in the very same slot. The cheapest models have their storage soldered to the board, and those have to arrive as whole machines.
What the 301 halt meansIt means the drive has reported its own SMART thresholds as breached and the BIOS will not carry on. Nothing more than that. Which of your files are still readable is a separate question, and plenty of 301 disks give up almost everything they held.
What we never run on yoursA factory reset, a Windows repair install, or chkdsk against the drive you posted. All three write, and writing is what shuts the door. Your drive is read once and then left alone; the mending happens afterwards on the copy, where a mistake costs nothing.

From the parcel to your files coming back.

Cases we have logged →
01

A case number, and a diagnosis at no cost Free

The diagnosis costs you nothing. Every item that arrives is logged under a case number of its own, and an engineer works out what has actually failed — then tells you plainly which files can come back and which cannot. The price follows that: one fixed figure, in writing, and no work begins until you have read it and said go ahead.

Diagnosis at no chargeOne fixed figure in writingNothing owed yet
02

A copy first, the original left alone

The drive comes out of the machine and onto our own hardware, where a sector-by-sector copy is taken before a single file is opened. Where the surface has gone weak, that copy is built in passes. Nothing is written back to what you sent us.

All disks copiedNothing written back
03

Reading what the BIOS could not

Everything after that happens on the copy. The partition table is put back where it has been lost, the NTFS structures are checked, BitLocker is unlocked with your key, and the Windows volume is mounted read-only so the folders can be walked through properly.

Partitions read on the copyMounted read-only
04

Fixes are made on the copy

A damaged file table, a partition that has vanished, a user folder that will not open — each of those is put right on the image and never on your drive. Then the files themselves are opened in turn, so what reaches the list is what genuinely works.

Mended on the copyEvery folder opened
05

You approve it, then it goes back

Nothing is billed while you are still deciding. A complete listing of what came off the drive reaches you first, and the invoice only follows your yes. Files travel back on media bought new for the job, return postage ours, and we do not close it here until every one of them opens on the machine you will use.

The file list is yours to approveBack on media bought newThe postage back is on us

What we usually find first

  • A BIOS code is not a diagnosis — 3F0 sits equally well on a dead drive, on a wiped boot sector and on a machine quietly set to the wrong storage mode. The disk has to be read before anyone can honestly say which.
  • The recovery partition is not a backup — HP ships it holding a clean copy of Windows, and nothing you have ever made is inside it. F11 puts the machine back to the day it left the factory, and it does that by writing over the drive you want read.
  • A machine that will not boot is often intact — plenty of HP laptops arrive with a healthy disk and a broken Windows install behind the 3F0. The drive is imaged, the volume mounted on other hardware, and the files walk straight off.
  • Encryption changes the order of things — device encryption is on by default on a lot of newer HP machines. The key sits in the TPM on that one mainboard and in the Microsoft account. Pull the drive without it and there is nothing there anyone can read.

What decides most of these jobs: whether the drive is still readable, and whether anybody has written to it since the trouble started. A 301 halt on a machine left switched off is a good position to be in. The same drive after a night of restarts, a chkdsk and a half-finished reset is a different job with a shorter list at the end of it. The first hour counts for more than the code does.

Straight out of the casebook.

CF · CDF-2026-0857LOGGED ✓

An update took the ProBook's fingerprint reader away, and the PIN with it

Her thumb had opened the laptop since the day she bought it. Then a Windows update dropped the fingerprint option off the sign-in screen, leaving a PIN chosen on the first afternoon and never typed since — and four wrong guesses shut her out for good. The drive came out of the chassis and onto a write blocker before anything else. The system volume was ordinary NTFS, and against a direct read the screen that had beaten her all week counted for nothing; the second volume, holding the client ledgers, came up with a BitLocker signature. The key identifier went to her down the phone, and the sheet turned up in a ring binder behind her practising certificate. It opened at the first attempt.

Both volumes returned2 days behind on payroll

Before you send it off.

Start with these

  • Switch the machine off the moment a code appears
  • Copy the code down word for word, 301 or 3F0
  • Get the BitLocker key off the Microsoft account
  • Send the bare drive, with the HP model number

What to avoid

  • Run F11 System Recovery to clear the fault
  • Let chkdsk loose on the drive you want back
  • Keep restarting to see if it gets past it
  • Move the drive into another machine to test it

What we get asked, week in, week out.

Hard Disk 1 (301) on an HP — is the disk finished?

Often it still reads. A 301 means the drive's own SMART counters have crossed the line the BIOS treats as fatal, so the machine refuses to carry on rather than take another run at it. That is a warning about the hardware, not a report on your files. Leave it off, and the disk gets read on our bench instead.

Boot Device Not Found 3F0 — does that mean it is dead?

Not by itself. All 3F0 tells you is that the BIOS found nothing it could start from. Sometimes the drive has died. Just as often the boot files are damaged, the boot order has shifted, or the machine sits in a storage mode that hides an NVMe card from everything else. Which one you have shows up quickly once the drive is imaged and read on other hardware.

Can I run HP System Recovery to get my files back?

Please do not. The recovery partition holds a factory copy of Windows and nothing whatever of yours. Running it lays that copy over the drive you want read, which is how an awkward job turns into a lost one. The same goes for a fresh install and for the Cloud Recovery Tool. If you need the machine working again, say so — the files come off first, then you can rebuild it.

BitLocker is asking for a key I never set — now what?

Windows 11 switches device encryption on during setup on plenty of HP machines, and the key goes quietly into the Microsoft account that signed in. Fetch it from that account before anything is posted: sign in on a phone, open your devices, look for the recovery key. Without it a drive out of the machine reads as noise. Send the bare drive to the Bristol lab; the machine itself stays with you.

Pages people often read next.

NAS machines → RAID 5 rebuilds → Encrypted by ransomware → Devices we take in →

An unplugged drive keeps whatever it still holds.

A failing drive has only so many starts left in it. Spend none of them. Keep the power off, and the free diagnosis will tell you what is still readable.

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Get it checked Where to post it