Case Studies · 90 real recoveries

Recoveries we've pulled off.

More than twenty-five years on the bench, written down. Filter by device, by fault, or by the customer's location — every entry here is a genuine recovery: what failed, what we found, and exactly what we handed back.

90 documented recoveries
13 device types
17 fault types
In-house recovery
Showing 90 of 90 case studies
Device

Hard Drive

3 cases
Hard Drive100% recovered

Fifteen years of family photos off a Seagate that was clicking

Seagate Barracuda 2 TB · head crash, platter 2
Retired teacher · Ballyhackamore, Belfast

By the time it dropped out of Windows for good, it had already spent a day clicking. That steady rhythm comes from the heads failing to catch their servo track and resetting on each pass, and because every spin-up drags them a little further across the platters, our first instruction was simple: stop turning it on. The bench confirmed one head down on the second surface, so we swapped in a matched donor stack and imaged slowly, working across the surfaces one at a time and saving the weakest for the end. Fifteen years of photos, scans and home video — all of it — went home on a fresh drive.

6 days14,200 filesHard Drive →
Hard DriveFull recovery

A lightning strike that took out the board, not the data

WD Blue 1 TB · blown TVS diode on the PCB
Home office · Antrim

After the storm the 1 TB WD gave no spin, no click, nothing — and that total silence was the encouraging part, since it usually means the board absorbed the surge while the mechanics escaped. A blown protection diode on the PCB, shorting the surge to ground, turned out to be the culprit. We repaired the board and carried over the adaptive ROM (the chip that stores calibration matched to that exact head stack), after which the drive spun up on the first attempt. The image came off without so much as a bad sector.

4 days640 GBHard Drive →
Hard Drive100% recovered

The firmware-bricked Toshiba two other shops had written off

Toshiba 3 TB · corrupt service-area modules
Accountancy practice · Bangor

Two firms had already called it dead, but it spun happily — the trouble was that it announced itself to the system as gibberish. That combination points at the service area, the hidden firmware region a drive consults before it will identify to a computer, and it meant the platters themselves were healthy. Reading the modules off the platters with a hardware tool, we rebuilt the damaged ones from the spare copies the drive keeps for the purpose, and it began reporting correctly. An image followed, and every client file was back with the practice ahead of its year-end.

8 days1.1 TBHard Drive →
Device

SSD & NVMe

3 cases
SSD & NVMe98% recovered

An NVMe that died overnight, back before the deadline

Samsung 970 EVO 1 TB · controller lock-up
Freelance video editor · Ormeau, Belfast

A week of client edits went in on Friday; by Monday the BIOS drew a complete blank. When an NVMe controller hangs like this the flash underneath is untouched — the problem is purely that nothing can reach it by the usual route. So we brought the drive up in the manufacturer's technical mode, read the NAND straight off and rebuilt the translator that ties logical blocks to physical flash. That put the file system back together, and the edits reached his hands on a new drive the following morning.

5 days780 GBSSD & NVMe →
SSD & NVMeFull recovery

A Windows update that made a Crucial M.2 disappear

Crucial P3 500 GB · controller protective halt
Graphic designer · Lisburn

When the power cut out mid-update, the M.2 vanished from the BIOS — but rather than failing, its controller had pulled into a protective state, which is a good sign: it means the drive is guarding the data instead of shedding it. Clearing that condition took the vendor's command sequence, and once it ran the drive returned with the partition mounting just as before. There was no rebuild and no carving to do; a careful reset and a straight image onto a clean drive were enough.

3 days210 GBSSD & NVMe →
SSD & NVMe97% recovered

A bricked SanDisk holding a dissertation with no backup

SanDisk Ultra 3D 2 TB · dead controller
Postgraduate student · Portadown

An almost-finished dissertation and three years of research shared a single home: a 2 TB SanDisk that had gone completely unresponsive. A dead controller ruled out the normal route, so we dropped down a level — reading the raw NAND, leaning on the drive's own wear-levelling map to order the blocks, then unpicking the compression the controller had applied. Out of that the file system reassembled, and the thesis, its bibliography and a set of figures were all present, with days still to spare before the deadline.

6 days1.4 TBSSD & NVMe →
Device

USB Stick

3 cases
USB StickFull recovery

A snapped USB stick with a tender due Friday

Kingston DataTraveler 64 GB · sheared connector and controller
Sales manager · Stranmillis, Belfast

A knee caught the stick and snapped it off in the port, and with it went the only copy of a £60k tender. Both the connector and the controller chip were beyond saving — but the NAND, which is where the data actually lives, had come through fine. We lifted it off, read it on a flash programmer, and reassembled the file structure out of that raw dump once the right scrambling and error-correction for that controller were applied. The finished tender was in hand two clear days before the bid closed.

4 days9,800 filesUSB Stick →
USB Stick99% recovered

The stick that powered up but kept demanding a format

SanDisk Cruzer 32 GB · failed controller
Charity coordinator · Lisburn

Power reached it and the light came on, yet every machine demanded a format first — the classic sign of a controller that has mislaid its translation tables, with the data beneath almost always intact. Taking the NAND off and reading it on a programmer, we undid the controller's scrambling and error-correction to render that raw dump readable, then laid the file system back on top. Membership lists, accounts and years of correspondence — the whole of the charity's records — came back untouched.

5 days18 GBUSB Stick →
USB Stick96% recovered

A flash drive through the wash, read where it sat

Integral 128 GB monolith · liquid damage
Student · Bangor

A coat pocket, a full wash cycle, and by the time it reached us the stick was stone dead. Monolithic drives fuse the controller and flash into a single epoxy block, which rules out the usual chip-off — and the water had left corrosion that needed dealing with before anything else. Under magnification we cleaned and dried the board, found the internal test points and read the flash where it lay, reconstructing everything from that raw image afterwards. A year of coursework, plus a phone's photo backup, made it through the swim.

8 days74 GBUSB Stick →
Device

Memory Card

3 cases
Memory Card100% recovered

A whole wedding off an SD card that read as 'corrupt'

SanDisk Extreme Pro 128 GB SD · file system corrupted mid-shoot
Wedding photographer · Holywood

First a write error during the speeches, then a demand to be formatted once she was back at the studio. Stopping there was exactly the right move — on a card like that, every additional frame threatens to overwrite what's still recoverable. Corruption had hit the directory but spared the images themselves, so we took a full sector-level copy and pulled the photos and video out of the raw data by their file signatures. Two thousand-plus frames — the entire day — were returned, and her reputation along with them.

3 days2,140 photosMemory Card →
Memory CardFull recovery

Crash footage saved off a dashcam microSD

Samsung EVO 64 GB microSD · corruption after a sudden power loss
Private motorist · Belfast

On impact the camera cut out, and the one clip that counted — the moments just before the collision — refused to play. Because dashcams overwrite in a continuous loop, an abrupt stop mid-write usually leaves the final file half-written and its index pointing nowhere. We reconstructed the allocation table on the card and knitted the orphaned video fragments into a file that would play, confirming the timestamps agreed. What the insurer needed emerged cleanly, together with the remainder of that day's loop.

48 hoursKey clip + 40 GBMemory Card →
Memory Card98% recovered

A CF card that seized up mid product shoot

Lexar 256 GB CompactFlash · controller glitch
Commercial photographer · Lisburn

The camera locked up mid-write, and the CF card came back with a garbled, half-empty directory. Its controller had hiccupped and mangled the file table, though the RAW files themselves were sitting safely on the flash. After taking a full image we rebuilt the directory, then validated each RAW against the JPEG thumbnail tucked inside it, so every file could be shown to open before it went back. The shoot survived in full — the client was none the wiser about the near-miss.

4 days1,620 RAW filesMemory Card →
Device

External HDD

3 cases
External HDD97% recovered

A dropped WD Elements with a jammed motor

WD Elements 4 TB · seized spindle, parked heads
Videographer · Malone, Belfast

A slide off the edit desk mid-backup left it buzzing weakly and never reaching speed. The drop had jammed the spindle and dropped the heads onto the platters — a combination that worsens with every powered second. Working in the clean area, we released the platter stack, fitted replacements for the heads the knock had damaged, and pulled an image before any further degradation set in. Four years of wedding films — footage that can never be shot again — came off very nearly complete.

9 days2.6 TBExternal HDD →
External HDDFull recovery

A dead enclosure with a perfectly healthy Seagate inside

Seagate Backup Plus 5 TB · failed USB-SATA bridge
Small e-commerce business · Bangor

Across every computer they plugged it into, the drive stayed invisible — usually a sign that the enclosure's little bridge board, not the disk, is at fault. Once we'd shelled the bare drive out, it spun and read flawlessly; the bridge was the casualty. The wrinkle here is that these bridges encrypt on the fly, so a raw read of the disk looks like noise until you deduce the scheme and reverse it. With that done, every product photo and three years' worth of invoices copied cleanly across to a replacement drive.

5 days3.1 TBExternal HDD →
External HDD99% recovered

An encrypted LaCie that failed with the only CAD archive on it

LaCie Rugged 2 TB · hardware-encrypted bridge failure
Architecture studio · Bangor

Overnight the orange rugged drive gave up, taking the studio's only copy of its entire CAD archive with it. Encryption on these happens at the bridge, so a healthy disk is no help on its own — lift the platters, read them, and all you get is ciphertext. We retrieved the keys sitting in the dead bridge's controller, decrypted the volume with them, and imaged the result. Every drawing, model and project file was handed back — along with a gentle reminder that one drive has never been a backup.

7 days1.5 TBExternal HDD →
Device

Mac & MacBook

3 cases
Mac & MacBook96% recovered

A dead T2 MacBook with its SSD soldered down

MacBook Pro 2019 · T2 chip, SSD soldered and encrypted
Marketing agency · Stranmillis, Belfast

Coffee did for it, and there was nothing to simply unplug — the storage on these is soldered down and locked by the T2 chip, so the files only exist in readable form while the board still lives. We carried out board-level repair to revive the power rails and the storage controller just far enough to capture the encrypted volume, then the owner's password opened it. The logic board was a write-off, but client campaigns, design files and a shared photo library were all retrieved.

11 days410 GBMac & MacBook →
Mac & MacBookFull recovery

APFS torn apart by a failed macOS update

iMac 2017 · APFS container damage, Fusion Drive
Illustrator · Ballymena

A macOS update that stalled midway left the iMac booting to nothing but a flashing question mark. The APFS container — Apple's current file system — had been caught mid-transaction, its metadata split between the old layout and the new. We copied both parts of the Fusion Drive, reconstructed the APFS structures using the checkpoints the format keeps for exactly this scenario, then mounted the volume read-only to extract the lot. Not one illustration, layered file or font was lost.

5 days680 GBMac & MacBook →
Mac & MacBook98% recovered

A FileVault iMac with its hard-drive half failing

iMac · failing HDD in Fusion pair, FileVault on
Author · Belmont, Belfast

The hard-disk half of the Fusion pair was failing, and to complicate matters the whole volume sat behind FileVault. Order was everything: the weak drive got copied first, in passes that grabbed the readable regions before the ailing heads deteriorated further, then it was recombined with the SSD half to rebuild the logical volume, and only at that point did the recovery key go in to decrypt. Several books' worth of manuscript — the author's complete archive — emerged intact and returned on an encrypted drive of his own.

8 days520 GBMac & MacBook →
Device

Laptop & PC

3 cases
Laptop & PC95% recovered

A Dell that froze, stopped booting, then fell silent

Dell XPS 15 · drive failing, reallocated sectors climbing
Management consultant · Belfast

A week of freezes gave way to a machine that wouldn't get past the boot logo — the drawn-out death of a disk shedding sectors. Its SMART data showed the reallocated count creeping up with each start, so every power-on was doing further harm. Pulling the drive, we banked the healthy zones with a first pass, then returned to the weak regions in short bursts, letting the imager ride out the timeouts. A year of the consultant's reports, models and client decks came off the disk before it quit for good.

6 days540 GBLaptop & PC →
Laptop & PCFull recovery

A failing PSU that took the boot drive with it

HP Pavilion · drive PCB killed by over-voltage
Family PC · Antrim

A dying power supply finally spiked, and in that instant the boot drive fell dead and silent. Over-voltage usually claims the drive's circuit board first — a protection component is designed to give way and take the hit — sparing the platters and the data on them. Rebuilding the board and moving the unique ROM across kept the calibration correct, and the drive revived at once. Years of family photos and a folder of tax records came off cleanly.

5 days720 GBLaptop & PC →
Laptop & PC99% recovered

A plumber's entire business on one failing office PC

Lenovo ThinkCentre · firmware-area fault
Plumbing firm · Ballymena

The office PC wouldn't start, and its only copy of the accounts software — invoices, customer records, the whole lot — sat on the internal drive with nothing backed up. It spun contentedly yet refused to read, which pointed at the firmware zone rather than any mechanical fault. Rebuilding the affected service-area modules brought the disk to the point where it identified properly, and an image followed. Back came the full customer database and every invoice, and they went away with an external drive and firm instructions to use it.

7 days480 GBLaptop & PC →
Device

RAID Array

3 cases
RAID Array100% recovered

A RAID 5 that dropped a second disk mid-rebuild

4-bay RAID 5 · double-disk failure
Design agency · Belfast

A first disk had died weeks earlier unnoticed, so when a second dropped out during the automatic rebuild the array went dark, and the agency wrote off the shared drive — RAID 5, after all, tolerates just one missing disk. We refuse to run a degraded array: each of the four disks was copied read-only, and the original stripe size, disk order and parity rotation were derived from the data itself rather than taken on trust from the controller. That layout in hand, the array was rebuilt in software and every file drawn off. The project store returned in one complete piece.

12 days4.8 TBRAID Array →
RAID ArrayFull recovery

A dead RAID controller and an array it refused to read

Dell PERC RAID 5 · controller failure
Solicitors' office · Bangor

When the hardware controller failed, its replacement point-blank refused to import the existing array — an awkward one, since the disks were in perfect health and only the controller's configuration had been lost. Copying each member, we worked the RAID parameters out from scratch, deducing where the parity lay and how the data was striped without any of the metadata the dead controller had carried off. The volume came back together and mounted, and the firm's case files — some attached to live matters — were checked and verified before they went back.

9 days2.2 TBRAID Array →
RAID Array98% recovered

A RAID 10 rebuild that wrecked its own mirror

RAID 10 · mirror broken during rebuild
Commercial printer · Lisburn

A single disk failed, and the rebuild that should have healed the array instead corrupted its partner mirror — damaging a stripe and a mirror together and leaving the volume unmountable. RAID 10 usually forgives, but not when a rebuild misfires across the wrong pair. Copying the survivors, we mapped out which disk mirrored which and how the stripes were laid, then reconstructed the data in software from the soundest copy of every block. A decade of print-ready artwork — client jobs going right back — was returned.

13 days3.4 TBRAID Array →
Device

NAS

3 cases
NAS100% recovered

A Synology flashing 'Volume crashed' by morning

Synology DS920+ · 4× 4 TB, SHR over Btrfs
Photography studio · Holywood

A red light and a 'Volume 1 has crashed' message greeted the studio one morning, with their entire catalogue behind it. Synology layers its own SHR array over the Btrfs file system, so this was really two jobs in one: nail the array geometry first, then mend the file system sitting on top. After copying all four disks we rebuilt the SHR layout and then picked through the Btrfs metadata, dropping back to its older tree copies wherever the current ones were damaged. Close to ten terabytes — the whole image library — came off.

10 days9.6 TBNAS →
NAS94% recovered

A QNAP frozen by QLocker ransomware

QNAP TS-453 · QLocker-encrypted shares
Accountancy firm · Portadown

QLocker had swept through the NAS, bundling every file into password-locked archives and leaving the usual ransom note. Paying was off the table, so we chased what the malware had overlooked: since it works by writing a fresh archive and deleting the original, those originals commonly linger in unallocated space and in old snapshots. Copying the disks, we carved the deleted originals back out and rebuilt most of the firm's working files without ever going near the attacker's key. The result was three weeks fresher than their last backup.

11 days1.8 TBNAS →
NAS97% recovered

A WD My Cloud that wouldn't wake

WD My Cloud EX2 · dead PSU and one bad disk
Family historian · Carrickfergus

The two-bay NAS showed no signs of life, and with power restored we discovered that one of its two mirrored disks had also died — two problems on one small box. Having fixed the power fault, we copied the surviving disk in full and then coaxed the failed one along to plug the few gaps its partner couldn't cover. A lifetime's work on the family tree — decades of scanned parish records, census sheets and old photographs — was saved.

8 days1.1 TBNAS →
Device

Server

3 cases
ServerFull recovery

A VMware datastore down with the whole company on it

Dell PowerEdge R740 · VMFS datastore on RAID 5
Manufacturing company · Belfast

A RAID 5 datastore on the VMware host fell over and took several virtual machines with it, the line-of-business server among them. Two layers again: rebuild the RAID beneath, then read the VMFS datastore above it to find and pull out the individual VMDK disks. Every member was copied, the array reconstructed, and the VMFS structures walked to locate each VMDK and extract it intact. The file server and the production server returned as bootable virtual disks the team could fire up right away.

14 days5.7 TBServer →
Server98% recovered

Two disks down on a RAID 6, and a third slipping

HP ProLiant DL380 · Smart Array RAID 6
Logistics company · Sydenham, Belfast

RAID 6 is meant to absorb two dead disks, yet this array had lost two already and a third was erroring badly — one more failure and it was finished. The failing disk took priority: it was copied first, nursed through its bad zones before it could give out completely, then the rest of the set followed, and the array was reconstructed from the double parity. Every order and stock movement in the warehouse management database was restored, and the backups finally moved off that same rack.

12 days3.9 TBServer →
Server99% recovered

A Hyper-V host whose VMs wouldn't start

Lenovo server · Hyper-V, VHDX on RAID 10
Dental practice · Bangor

A sudden shutdown left the practice's Hyper-V machines unable to boot, their VHDX disks marked corrupt. A RAID 10 underneath needed looking at too, so the array was rebuilt and verified first, after which we addressed the VHDX files, mending the block-allocation structures that had been left in an inconsistent state. Mounted, the guest file systems checked out clean. The practice-management system and the complete patient record database were restored, and the surgery was booking appointments again within a fortnight.

10 days2.4 TBServer →
Device

Virtual Machine

3 cases
Virtual MachineFull recovery

A deleted snapshot that left a VM unbootable

VMware ESXi · deleted VMDK snapshot chain
IT consultancy · Belfast

Deleting a snapshot to reclaim space triggered a consolidation that broke the chain, and the virtual machine could no longer start. The base disk and the delta files had fallen out of agreement over which blocks were current. We pieced the snapshot chain back together, established the right sequence of deltas and applied them to the base to yield a single coherent virtual disk. It booted, the data within was whole, and we walked the client through a snapshot policy to keep it from recurring.

6 days420 GBVirtual Machine →
Virtual Machine97% recovered

A corrupt VHDX after the host fell over

Hyper-V · damaged dynamic VHDX
Software company · Lisburn

A crash mid-write left a dynamic VHDX — one that expands as needed — with a corrupt block allocation table, and Hyper-V duly refused to mount it. That table records where every chunk of guest data actually lives; damage it and the file becomes little more than a heap of blocks. Reading the VHDX at block level, we rebuilt the allocation map from the internal structures and put the guest file system back together. The development server returned with its Git repositories intact and every commit accounted for.

7 days660 GBVirtual Machine →
Virtual Machine96% recovered

A broken QCOW2 image on a KVM host

KVM / QEMU · damaged QCOW2 image
Web hosting provider · Portadown

A storage glitch left a QCOW2 image on a KVM host corrupted, and the guest — a customer's web server — wouldn't come up. A QCOW2 file uses two tiers of reference tables to locate its data, and here the upper tier had been damaged, cutting off everything beneath it. We rebuilt those QCOW2 lookup tables, pulled out the guest volume and ran a file-system check to make sure it was clean before we handed it over. The hosted sites and their databases all came back, and the customer was live again the same day we wrapped up.

8 days540 GBVirtual Machine →
Device

Database

3 cases
Database99% recovered

A SQL Server database stuck in 'suspect'

Microsoft SQL Server · inconsistent MDF and LDF
Wholesale distributor · Belfast

After a server crash the main database sat marked 'suspect', with SQL Server flatly declining to attach it — the data file and its transaction log had diverged, so the engine trusted neither. Rather than gamble on the built-in repair, which can discard whole pages, we went in at page level to mend the damaged structures, draw out the tables and assemble a clean, consistent database from them. Stock levels, order history and the customer ledger were all restored, checked against row counts before the database went back.

7 days240 GBDatabase →
Database97% recovered

A botched migration that broke an InnoDB store

MySQL / InnoDB · corrupt tablespace
Online retailer · Bangor

A migration that died at the halfway mark left MySQL unable to start — a corrupt InnoDB tablespace was taking the entire server down with it. Pulling the table definitions from the data dictionary, we then reconstructed the InnoDB pages out of the per-table files to recover the rows themselves, routing around the pages the failure had ruined. Catalogue, customer accounts and order tables were assembled into a clean database, and once the data checked out the shop was serving orders again.

8 days61 GBDatabase →
Database98% recovered

An Exchange store that refused to mount after a power cut

Microsoft Exchange · dirty-shutdown EDB
Engineering firm · Lisburn

Power loss dropped the mailbox database into a 'dirty shutdown' that wouldn't mount — it wanted to replay log files that were themselves damaged. We ran the usable logs to carry the database as far forward as was safe, patched the EDB structure, and then extracted the mailboxes one by one. Years of company correspondence, some attached to live projects, were saved and written out to PST so the firm could dive straight back in.

9 days380 GBDatabase →
Device

SAN

3 cases
SAN98% recovered

An enterprise SAN that dropped three disks in a week

Fibre-channel SAN · 12-disk RAID 6 LUN
Regional data centre · Belfast

Three members failed in quick succession on a twelve-disk RAID 6 LUN, which then dropped offline and took a stack of virtualised storage down with it. Since RAID 6 survives two losses but not three, this needed painstaking reconstruction rather than a routine rebuild. All twelve disks were copied, the geometry across the set worked out — stripe size, order and dual-parity rotation — and the LUN reassembled in software from the soundest copy of each stripe. Its datastores were recovered and handed back, re-presented for the team to bring online.

16 days22 TBSAN →
SANFull recovery

Both SAN controllers down after a firmware update

iSCSI SAN · dual-controller, RAID 5 storage pool
Hosting company · Portadown

A firmware update that failed on both controllers together rendered the storage pool inaccessible — the disks were healthy, but the metadata defining how the pool fit together had been corrupted. Studying the on-disk layout, we established how the RAID 5 sets combined into the pool, rebuilt that arrangement and offered the LUNs to a test host to verify they mounted. The hosted virtual machines came back in full, and from our images the provider brought its own customers' services back up.

15 days14 TBSAN →
SAN97% recovered

A SAN expansion shelf that dragged a volume down with it

SAN expansion shelf · RAID 10 across SAS disks
Financial services firm · Bangor

When an expansion shelf lost power, a RAID 10 volume spanning it failed to return. A number of the SAS disks were on the edge and had to be copied before they deteriorated further, so the clock was against us. We copied the set, plotted the mirror pairs and the shelf's stripe layout, and rebuilt the volume in software from the best surviving copy of each block. The firm's archived records — retained for regulatory reasons and impossible to simply lose — were recovered and validated before they went back.

14 days9 TBSAN →
Service

Photo Recovery

3 cases
Photo RecoveryFull recovery

A year of photos a toddler wiped from a phone

microSD from Android phone · mass deletion
Family · Castlereagh, Belfast

A two-year-old got at the phone and wiped the gallery, and a year of pictures — first steps, a first birthday — appeared to have gone. Because deleted images linger on the card until something overwrites them, the vital move was to stop using it at once, which the parents did. We took an image of the microSD and pulled the deleted JPEGs, thumbnails included, back out by their signatures. The full year returned; the only real casualty was a few minutes of parental panic.

48 hours3,400 photosPhoto Recovery →
Photo Recovery98% recovered

Shots off a card accidentally formatted in the camera

SD card · in-camera quick format
Hobbyist photographer · Bangor

Ready for the next outing, he'd formatted the card in the camera — then remembered the previous trip had never been offloaded. A camera's quick format wipes only the file index and leaves the photos where they are, so the outlook was promising. Working from an image of the card, we rebuilt the directory and tested each RAW and JPEG against its embedded preview to confirm it opened. Almost every frame survived, returned with a gentle reminder to copy before formatting in future.

3 days1,250 photosPhoto Recovery →
Photo Recovery96% recovered

Twenty years of photos off a failing family drive

External HDD photo archive · widespread bad sectors
Grandparent · Nailsea

The drive with every family photo on it had grown painfully sluggish and begun losing whole folders — a disk dying by degrees. Bad sectors were everywhere, and each trip through the folders worsened matters. We secured the healthy areas with a first pass, then returned to the failing regions in patient passes, easing off what the weak surfaces would give. Two decades of photographs — grandchildren, holidays, a wedding or two — were rescued before the drive finally quit.

6 days88,000 photosPhoto Recovery →
Service

Deleted Files

3 cases
Deleted FilesFull recovery

Year-end spreadsheets gone past the Recycle Bin

Windows PC · Shift-deleted files
Bookkeeper · Belfast

A folder of year-end spreadsheets went with a Shift-delete — bypassing the Recycle Bin entirely — just as the accounts fell due. Removed that way, files aren't wiped but merely de-listed, surviving until the space is overwritten, so we had her power the PC down and bring it in rather than carry on using it. From an image of the drive, the spreadsheets came out of unallocated space whole and openable. The accounts still made the deadline, and a backup routine went in that same afternoon.

3 days1,900 filesDeleted Files →
Deleted Files92% recovered

Contracts lost when a shared bin was emptied

Windows · emptied Recycle Bin, partial overwrite
Estate agents · Antrim

Signed contracts landed in the Recycle Bin, a colleague emptied it, and the shared machine kept being used for a day before anyone noticed. That gap cost a little — a handful of files had been partly overwritten — but the ones that mattered survived. The intact contracts we recovered outright, and for the rest we salvaged fragments usable enough to identify and re-source them. The essential paperwork was back, and the reflex of emptying the bin earned a firm word.

4 days640 filesDeleted Files →
Deleted Files95% recovered

A whole project folder deleted off the file server

File-server drive · deleted shared folder
Construction firm · Lisburn

A whole project folder — drawings, surveys, correspondence — was deleted off the office file server and only missed several days on. We pulled the server drive offline at once so day-to-day use couldn't overwrite the deleted data, then imaged it. Working from what the file table had left behind, we rebuilt the folder structure and recovered the vast majority of its contents, drawings included. The project carried on with barely a hiccup, and the server came away with proper versioned backups.

5 days2.1 TBDeleted Files →
Service

Formatted Media

3 cases
Formatted Media98% recovered

The wrong drive formatted in a hurry

External HDD · quick-formatted by mistake
Freelancer · Ormeau, Belfast

Mid-setup on a new machine, one hasty click through a format prompt wiped the wrong drive — the one holding her working portfolio. A routine quick format merely writes a fresh, empty file system over the top, leaving the old data in place until it's overwritten. From the image we reconstructed the original partition and file system and lifted the contents off in a single pass. The portfolio returned intact, with a pointed note about which drive letter had nearly ruined her week.

3 days900 GBFormatted Media →
Formatted MediaFull recovery

A teaching USB formatted during a laptop swap

USB flash drive · quick format
Teacher · Trowbridge

Years of lesson plans and resources sat on a USB stick that got formatted by accident while she moved to a new laptop. Because the quick format had wiped only the index, the documents were still present on the flash. We pulled them — worksheets, presentations, a decade of teaching materials — out of the raw data and checked each one opened. Nothing was lost, and the teacher left with it copied to two places instead of none.

48 hours12 GBFormatted Media →
Formatted Media94% recovered

A card re-initialised in a new camera body

SD card · full initialise in new camera
Photographer · Bangor

A new camera body initialised the card before the previous month's shoot had been offloaded — clearing the file system, though not the image data beneath. We carved the RAW files out of the card image and matched each against its preview, so we could be sure it was complete before calling it recovered. The shoot came back, with only a handful of frames lost from a heavily reused stretch of the card. The client's job was safe.

4 days780 photosFormatted Media →
Service

Corrupted Files

3 cases
Corrupted Files97% recovered

An Outlook PST too corrupt to open

Windows · damaged 40 GB Outlook PST
Insurance broker · Belfast

Outlook refused to open and pronounced the PST corrupt, locking the broker out of years of email at the worst conceivable time. The file had ballooned well beyond a sensible size, and an unclean shutdown had wrecked its internal index. Repairing the PST's structure, we drew out every surviving mail item, calendar entry and attachment and assembled them into a clean file that opened. The mailbox was restored, and we shifted them to a server mailbox so a single bloated file couldn't hold them hostage again.

4 days40 GBCorrupted Files →
Corrupted Files95% recovered

A corrupted edit and a client deadline

Project drive · damaged project file and media
Video producer · Ballymena

A drive knocked loose mid-save left both the edit's project file and several media clips corrupt, with the cut only days away. We mended the project file so the timeline would load, then re-examined the linked media and pulled clean copies of the damaged clips off the disk. The edit opened again with its timeline whole and the footage restored to place. The producer made the deadline — and took up saving versions to a second drive.

5 days1.3 TBCorrupted Files →
Corrupted FilesFull recovery

A thesis chapter scrambled by a power cut

Laptop · documents corrupted on hard shutdown
PhD researcher · Bangor

When the power failed mid-save, a thesis chapter and a results spreadsheet — months of effort — would open only as gibberish. Their file sizes were right, so the content was present; what had broken was the internal structure of each document. Mending the file containers, we recovered the prose and the cell data held inside. Chapter and results were back, and the researcher walked out with version history enabled and a cloud backup ticking over.

3 days9 key filesCorrupted Files →
Service

Missing Partition

3 cases
Missing Partition99% recovered

A drive that suddenly read as 'RAW'

External HDD · partition showing as RAW
Designer · Belfast

Plugged in as always, the drive abruptly presented as unformatted 'RAW', and Windows offered to initialise it — an offer that would only have deepened the hole. The partition table had taken damage, but the data behind it sat exactly where it had been. Scanning the image for file-system signatures, we found the missing partition by its edges and rebuilt the table to address it correctly. Everything reappeared as if nothing had gone wrong, and we copied it off rather than trust it to the same disk.

3 days1.4 TBMissing Partition →
Missing Partition97% recovered

A partition lost to an interrupted resize

Internal SSD · partition lost mid-resize
Developer · Lisburn

A partition-resizing tool was cut off midway, and on restart an entire volume had disappeared. The half-completed resize had left the partition boundaries inconsistent, so nothing addressed the data any longer. From the traces the file system had left, we deduced the original layout, rebuilt the partition and mounted it again. The developer's code, a clutch of local databases and several virtual machines all returned — and this time the resize was finished properly, on a backup.

4 days320 GBMissing Partition →
Missing PartitionFull recovery

A backup drive turned blank by a corrupt boot sector

Backup HDD · corrupt boot sector
Garden centre · Thornbury

The backup drive — which, ironically, held the only copy of some of it — turned inaccessible and reported no file system whatsoever. Corruption in both the boot sector and the partition entry made a full disk read as empty. We reconstructed both from the spare copies the file system stashes away for precisely this, and the volume mounted right back. The business records came off, and the garden centre discovered the hard way that a backup wants a backup of its own.

3 days760 GBMissing Partition →
Service

Virus & Malware

3 cases
Virus & Malware94% recovered

Files wiped by a malware infection, brought back

Windows PC · malware deleted user files
Home user · Ballyhackamore, Belfast

An infection had run through the machine, deleting documents and photos as it went. The lucky part was that it deleted rather than encrypted — deleted files sit in unallocated space, whereas strong encryption is a far harder nut — so recovery was on the table. On an isolated rig, so nothing could spread, we copied the drive and retrieved the deleted data from its free space. The personal files came back, the malware stayed in quarantine, and they left with antivirus and a backup they hadn't had before.

5 days2,800 filesVirus & Malware →
Virus & Malware96% recovered

A trojan that corrupted half the shared drive

Office PC · malware-damaged file system
Letting agency · Portadown

A trojan had corrupted the file system and rendered around half the shared folders unreadable. Working on an isolated, clean rig — essential, so nothing could jump to other machines — we took a copy and repaired the damaged file-system structures until access returned. The agency's tenancy files, references and accounts all came off; the malware we deliberately excluded from the restore. They headed home with the data on a clean, virus-scanned drive with a proper backup running.

6 days540 GBVirus & Malware →
Virus & MalwareFull recovery

A drive that looked empty after an infection

External HDD · malware altered the file system
Student · Bangor

Once it had picked up something nasty, the external drive read as entirely empty despite being nearly full — unnerving, but a useful clue. Instead of deleting anything, the malware had doctored the directory to conceal the files, so every one was still physically present. Rebuilding the file system brought the data back whole. Coursework, a dissertation draft and a folder of photos all came off, and the student left with a backup and a new, healthy suspicion of dodgy downloads.

4 days410 GBVirus & Malware →
Service

Ransomware

3 cases
Ransomware91% recovered

A LockBit-hit server rebuilt from disk remnants

Windows server · LockBit-encrypted files
Manufacturing firm · Belfast

LockBit had locked the file server top to bottom, and the only backups on hand were months stale. Ransoms aren't something we pay, and strong encryption isn't something anyone breaks, so we chased what the attack had missed: older, unencrypted copies of files and shadow-copy remnants still on the disk in places the malware never touched. Copying the server and carving those out restored most of the live working data — enough to get the firm moving again without a payment — and the old backup filled the remaining gaps.

13 days1.6 TBRansomware →
Ransomware88% recovered

A photographer's NAS held to ransom

NAS · ransomware-encrypted catalogue
Photography studio · Lisburn

The studio's NAS was hit by ransomware demanding crypto for a key we might never see. Paying was out; instead we examined the strain's method — it wrote encrypted copies and removed the originals, and many of those originals were still hiding in unallocated space and in old snapshots. Carving them back out, we rebuilt the catalogue around what we found. A sizeable chunk of the archive — shoots clients had paid for and were awaiting — was saved, and not a penny went to the attacker.

12 days3.2 TBRansomware →
Ransomware90% recovered

Mapped drives encrypted overnight at a survey firm

File server · ransomware on mapped shares
Surveyors · Lisburn

Overnight, every mapped share was encrypted, and staff arrived to find locked files and a ransom demand. Off the server's disk we retrieved earlier document versions and pieced together the freshest unencrypted copies available from shadow data the malware had passed over. Their live survey projects returned largely intact, no ransom was paid, and they were operating again within a fortnight. The takeaway — offline, off-network backups — landed hard.

11 days980 GBRansomware →
Service

BitLocker

3 cases
BitLocker97% recovered

A failing BitLocker laptop drive, unlocked safely

Laptop · failing BitLocker-encrypted drive
Consultant · Belfast

A BitLocker-locked laptop drive started to fail and stopped unlocking the usual way. Order matters enormously: decrypt a failing drive in place and you risk finishing it off, so the ailing disk was copied first, sector by sector, and only then was the owner's recovery key applied to the safe copy. Decryption succeeded and the data emerged. A year of documents and the client's work were returned on a sound drive, which the consultant re-encrypted himself.

6 days430 GBBitLocker →
BitLockerFull recovery

A dead BitLocker To Go drive, recovery key in hand

External HDD · BitLocker To Go
NHS contractor · Bangor

A BitLocker To Go external drive failed, and although the contractor held the recovery key, a key is useless if the drive won't power up to accept it. We nursed the drive back just far enough for a full image, then applied the key to that image offline. The encrypted volume sprang open and the documents — sensitive enough that the encryption was there for a reason — came out while remaining protected the whole way. They returned on an encrypted drive, chain of custody intact.

7 days260 GBBitLocker →
BitLocker98% recovered

An encrypted system drive that wouldn't boot

Desktop · BitLocker system drive, boot failure
Finance team · Portadown

Windows quit booting, leaving the encrypted system drive parked at its recovery-key prompt — the team had the key, but handing it to a drive in an uncertain state is a risk. So we copied the disk first, then ran the key against that image to mount the volume safely, offline. Finance files, spreadsheets and email were all recovered and checked. They left with the data on a new drive and a runbook note recording where the recovery key actually lived.

5 days510 GBBitLocker →
Service

Forensic

3 cases
ForensicEvidence recovered

Deleted messages recovered to evidential standard

Storage media · deleted chat data · court matter
Law firm · Belfast

A solicitor wanted deleted messages recovered and, no less importantly, documented well enough to survive a courtroom. We operated purely on a forensic image, the original left write-blocked and untouched, and lifted the deleted records out of unallocated space. Each step was hashed and logged, keeping the chain of custody unbroken from the moment the device arrived to the final report. What we found went back as a clear, court-ready document the firm could set before a judge.

10 daysReport + exhibitsForensic →
ForensicTimeline reconstructed

An activity timeline rebuilt for an HR case

Laptop drive · cleared activity history
HR investigation · Bangor

An internal enquiry hinged on the activity of a laptop whose history had been deliberately erased. From a write-blocked forensic image we pieced deleted browser artefacts, file-access traces and system logs into one defensible sequence of events. The original was altered in no way, and every conclusion arrived with the method that produced it. That reconstructed sequence went over as a report the organisation could stand behind, its chain of custody intact from start to finish.

9 daysForensic reportForensic →
ForensicRecords recovered

Deleted ledgers recovered for a commercial dispute

Office PC · deleted financial records
Dispute resolution · Lisburn

At the centre of a commercial dispute lay deleted accounting records that had to be recovered in a manner the opposing side couldn't unpick. From a forensic image we retrieved the deleted ledgers and supporting documents, hashing every item so its integrity could be demonstrated. Method and exhibits alike were set out in a full report fit for proceedings. The records were produced with proper evidence behind them, and the dispute turned to the facts.

11 daysExhibits + reportForensic →
Service

CCTV / DVR

3 cases
CCTV / DVRFootage recovered

Shop CCTV pulled from a DVR that wiped itself

Hikvision DVR · corrupt proprietary filesystem
Convenience store · Belfast

The shop wanted footage of an incident, yet the DVR had corrupted and played back nothing at all. Recorders like these shun Windows file systems in favour of a proprietary format ordinary tools can't touch, so we copied the DVR's disk and reconstructed its recording structure by hand, reassembling the timeline. Having pinpointed the relevant window, we exported it to ordinary video. The footage the police wanted came off and went over in a format they could actually open.

5 daysIncident clipsCCTV / DVR →
CCTV / DVRPartial footage recovered

NVR footage rescued before it overwrote itself

Dahua NVR · footage partly overwritten
Property landlord · Bangor

By the time anyone came looking for the clip that counted, the NVR had already begun recycling old footage, so a portion was gone. Copying the disk, we pulled the surviving video fragments off it and reassembled as much of the event as the recorder hadn't yet overwritten. The crucial stretch was recovered — plenty for the landlord's needs — along with a plain note on which window had been lost to the loop, and why speed counts next time.

6 days40 GB videoCCTV / DVR →
CCTV / DVRFootage recovered

A dead pub DVR drive after a power cut

Swann DVR · failed surveillance HDD
Pub · Bangor

A power cut did for the surveillance drive in the pub's DVR, and the footage flatly refused to play. The disk itself had died — surveillance drives run around the clock and wear through — so bench work came before any data could be read. From an image of the failed drive we rebuilt the DVR's recording structure and exported the stretch the pub wanted. The footage came off and went over in a standard format, with a recommendation to fit a fresh, purpose-built drive next.

7 daysRequested periodCCTV / DVR →
Service

Crypto Wallet

3 cases
Crypto WalletWallet recovered

A Bitcoin wallet stranded on a dead hard drive

Laptop HDD · wallet.dat on a failed drive
Investor · Belfast

A wallet file holding a serious amount of Bitcoin lived on a laptop disk that had quit — a mechanical fault, so software alone was never going to revive it without hands-on work. Opening the drive in the clean area, we addressed the fault, took an image, and found the wallet.dat sitting in the recovered file system. It went back to its owner intact, along with advice to keep the keys backed up offline so one drive dying could never again lock the funds away.

8 dayswallet.datCrypto Wallet →
Crypto WalletKeystore recovered

A deleted wallet carved back off an SSD

SSD · accidentally deleted wallet file
Trader · Lisburn

An accidental deletion took out a crypto wallet file, and with money tied to it the owner assumed the worst. SSDs complicate matters — a drive's own garbage collection can wipe deleted blocks for good — so we captured an image immediately to lock its state before more could vanish. Out of that image we recovered the wallet's keystore and key files from unallocated space and got access back. Timing was everything; a day on, and the drive's background housekeeping might have swept the lot away.

5 dayskeystore + keysCrypto Wallet →
Crypto WalletWallet recovered

A wallet backup on a reformatted external drive

External HDD · reformatted with the wallet on it
Long-term holder · Portadown

An external drive carrying a wallet backup was reformatted before its owner recalled what it held — a gut-punch for a long-term holder. Happily, the quick format had merely dropped a new file system on top, leaving the original data underneath. From the image we reconstructed the earlier file system and pulled the wallet and its backup files out whole. Access to the funds returned, and the keys moved onto clearly labelled cold storage so the next tidy-up couldn't take them.

6 dayswallet + backupCrypto Wallet →
Service

Water & Fire

3 cases
Water & Fire95% recovered

A flood-soaked backup drive after a burst pipe

External HDD · water-damaged electronics
Homeowner · Ormeau, Belfast

A burst pipe above a home office left the backup drive standing in water unnoticed — stone dead by the time we saw it. Water and a wet board corrode quickly, so time mattered: the faster it's stabilised, the more comes through. We cleaned and dried the components, mended the corroded board and captured an image before the corrosion could spread further. The family's documents and photographs were returned, and the waterlogged original retired for good.

9 days1.2 TBWater & Fire →
Water & Fire92% recovered

A laptop drive recovered from a house fire

Laptop drive · heat and smoke damage
Small business · Ballymena

A house fire left a laptop charred, its drive soot-covered and heat-stressed through and through. Heat treats drives badly — warping platters, cooking the lubricant — so this called for a careful hand. Working in controlled conditions, we cleaned the platters by hand and fitted new heads to read surfaces the originals no longer could. Given everything it had endured, most of the business records pulled through, and the accounts the owner needed most were among them.

12 days480 GBWater & Fire →
Water & Fire94% recovered

Both NAS disks pulled wet from a flood

NAS disks · submerged after flooding
Charity office · Lisburn

A flood submerged a NAS, and both disks emerged wet, filthy and dead to the touch. Each drive was stabilised and dried thoroughly before anything was powered — hurry that stage and you destroy more than the water ever did — after which we copied the stronger disk in full and coaxed the weaker one to fill the mirror's gaps. The charity's donor records, accounts and case files came back, and they left with the data on dry, sound storage and a backup kept upstairs.

11 days1.6 TBWater & Fire →
Service

Dropped / Damaged

3 cases
Dropped / Damaged96% recovered

A portable drive dropped on the road, mid-trip

Portable HDD · head crash after a fall
Traveller · Belfast

Dropped on pavement mid-trip, the little drive gave a single click and then refused to mount — the impact had slammed the heads onto the platters. Powering it in that condition only drives the damage deeper, so it arrived at the bench untouched. We fitted a matched head assembly and worked through an image of the platters with care, saving the worst surface for last. Months of holiday snaps and a folder of documents came off — the kind of memories that don't come round twice.

8 days900 GBDropped / Damaged →
Dropped / Damaged95% recovered

A desktop knocked over while it was running

Internal HDD · physical shock under load
Graphic designer · Bangor

A tower toppled while powered on, and the boot drive died in that same instant — a spinning drive, heads skimming the platters, is never more vulnerable than when it's knocked. On the bench we found the heads damaged, fitted a matched stack and copied the disk before the surfaces could worsen. The design portfolio, client work and a font library built up over years were recovered and returned on a new drive, with a gentle push towards a UPS and a backup.

9 days1.1 TBDropped / Damaged →
Dropped / Damaged97% recovered

A drive that didn't survive a house move

External HDD · impact damage in transit
Family · Antrim

Thrown loosely into a box for a house move, the drive turned up rattling and wouldn't read — the shaking had wrecked the head stack. Knocks like that seldom harm the data itself; it's the mechanism that fails. We swapped the heads and imaged the platters in patient passes, routing around the handful of spots hit hardest. Years of family photos and home videos returned, and the family took away the lesson that drives travel best padded, powered off and, ideally, backed up beforehand.

8 days1.8 TBDropped / Damaged →
Service

Clicking / Grinding

3 cases
Clicking / Grinding98% recovered

A clicking drive switched off just in time

Seagate HDD · failed heads
Writer · Belmont, Belfast

A steady, rhythmic click set in, and then the drive vanished from the computer entirely. That clicking is the heads unable to find their bearings and resetting over and over — each pass abrading the platters a little more — so we had him power it off and bring it in, which is what rescued the job. At the bench, donor heads went in and we imaged the drive before the surfaces could wear further. A novel-in-progress and years of manuscripts came back intact.

7 days320 GBClicking / Grinding →
Clicking / Grinding94% recovered

A grinding drive with a motor that had seized

Desktop HDD · spindle motor seizure
Photographer · Newry

This one didn't click — it ground harshly at power-up and never reached speed. A drive that grinds and won't spin usually points to a seized spindle motor, the platters locked solid. The repair is fiddly: we moved the whole platter stack into a donor body with a healthy motor, holding the discs in exact alignment, and imaged it from there. A professional photographer's archive — years of client and personal work — came off a drive that, frankly, sounded beyond help.

11 days2.3 TBClicking / Grinding →
Clicking / Grinding96% recovered

A backup drive that clicked now and then

External HDD · one head degrading
Accountant · Ballymena

The backup drive had taken to clicking on and off, getting slower and flakier as it did — the hallmark of one head beginning to fail and dragging the rest down with it. It would only deteriorate if left, so we imaged it without delay: the healthy zones first to bank them, then the patchy stretches. A matched head stack, swapped in, let us read the surfaces the failing head had been fighting. The accounting backups — clients' books and years of returns — came back in full.

8 days740 GBClicking / Grinding →
Service

Not Recognised

3 cases
Not Recognised98% recovered

A drive that mounted but errored every single time

External HDD · detected but inaccessible
Home user · Belfast

The drive appeared in Windows without complaint, then threw a read error the moment you went to open it. That signature — visible yet unreadable — usually means a corrupt file system on a mechanically sound disk, which is about as good as this news gets. We copied it, rebuilt the file-system structures and had the whole lot accessible again. Family photos and a stack of documents came back, duplicated onto a spare drive so any future corruption wouldn't be a crisis.

4 days680 GBNot Recognised →
Not RecognisedFull recovery

A drive that reported itself as nonsense

Internal HDD · firmware service-area fault
Small business · Carrickfergus

The drive spun up readily but never told the system its true model or capacity, presenting instead as a garbled string or plainly the wrong size. That indicates the firmware zone — the hidden service area a drive consults before it will identify — rather than any physical harm. We rebuilt the corrupt modules from the sound copies on the platters until the disk introduced itself properly, then took an image. The business's files came back, and they at last set up a backup routine.

6 days520 GBNot Recognised →
Not Recognised99% recovered

A drive no port or cable would detect

External HDD · failed bridge board
Student · Bangor

Machine after machine, port after port, cable after cable, the student got nothing — the drive wasn't detected at all. On a portable like this, that usually implicates the enclosure's USB bridge rather than the disk, and so it proved. We removed the bare drive, undid the on-the-fly encryption the bridge had been applying and read it directly. Coursework and a dissertation draft came out intact, and the bare drive went into a fresh caddy with a backup beside it.

5 days410 GBNot Recognised →
Service

Won't Power On

3 cases
Won't Power OnFull recovery

A drive gone completely silent after a surge

Internal HDD · burnt PCB
Home office · Belfast

Following a power surge the drive was completely silent — no spin, no tick, nothing. That total quiet is oddly good news: it generally means the circuit board absorbed the surge and sacrificed itself to shield the mechanics, leaving platters and data unharmed. We repaired the board, carried the drive's matched ROM across to keep the calibration right, and it started first time. The lot copied off cleanly, and the home office left with a surge protector.

4 days560 GBWon't Power On →
Won't Power On95% recovered

A drive that took power but wouldn't spin

External HDD · stuck heads stalling the motor
Photographer · Portadown

It took power and gave a faint tick at start-up, but the platters stayed still. That tick-and-stall is textbook stiction — the heads have bonded to the platter surface and are jamming the motor outright. In the clean area we eased the heads off the platters, replaced those damaged by the sticking, and the drive spun up as it should. We imaged it right away, and a sizeable photo library came off intact before anything could seize once more.

8 days1.4 TBWon't Power On →
Won't Power OnFull recovery

A boot drive killed dead by a failing PSU

Desktop HDD · over-voltage damage
Business owner · Lisburn

A failing power supply finally surged, and the boot drive dropped dead there and then. Over-voltage tends to strike the drive's board — a protection component is meant to give way first and divert the surge — while the platters come through untouched. We rebuilt the board and matched its unique ROM to keep the calibration right, then got the drive back online. The firm's accounts and email were recovered, and the dying PSU was replaced before it could take anything else down with it.

5 days640 GBWon't Power On →
Service

SSD Not Detected

3 cases
SSD Not Detected97% recovered

An SSD that fell out of the BIOS overnight

SATA SSD · controller lock-up
Developer · Belfast

One day the SSD was present, the next it had vanished from the BIOS, taking the developer's code and local environments with it. SSDs behave this way when the controller hangs mid-operation — the flash is intact, but there's no reaching it through the usual door. We switched the drive into its technical mode, dumped the NAND and reconstructed the translator mapping logical blocks to physical flash, which brought the file system back. The repositories and config were recovered and pushed somewhere with an off-site backup.

5 days320 GBSSD Not Detected →
SSD Not DetectedFull recovery

An NVMe gone after a firmware update

NVMe SSD · protective halt after firmware update
Designer · Lisburn

An SSD firmware update that didn't apply cleanly left the NVMe drive undetected afterwards. Rather than failing outright, the controller had slipped into a protective mode — a defensive posture that looks alarming but actually means the drive is trying to hold on to the data, not shed it. We ran the vendor sequence to clear the state, the drive returned, and the partition read exactly as it had before. Nothing needed rebuilding; the design files were intact and copied off to a clean drive.

3 days260 GBSSD Not Detected →
SSD Not Detected96% recovered

A dead M.2 carrying a firm's live projects

M.2 SSD · controller failure
Architecture firm · Bangor

The M.2 dropped off the laptop entirely, carrying a set of live project files with it. A failed controller meant the drive couldn't be addressed the normal way, so we read the NAND directly and rebuilt the data with the drive's wear-levelling map to restore the block order, then untangled the controller's encoding. The file system knitted back together and the firm's CAD projects — work caught mid-deadline — were recovered and handed back on a new drive with a backup set up.

6 days480 GBSSD Not Detected →
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