BH · BHD-2026-8804RECORDED ✓
Ten years of photographs on a clicking 2TB Seagate
The head stack came out of a matched donor. We imaged the platters around the scored band, then put the picture library back together from that image.
Data recovery bench · Birmingham · Black Country · Solihull · Worcestershire
Data recovery in Birmingham. A dead drive and live files are not the same thing.
Across Birmingham and the West Midlands: an external that clicks and will not mount, a camera card asking to be formatted, a snapped USB stick, a Mac stuck on a folder icon, a RAID set one disk down — in most of those the data is still there to read. We look for free, quote one figure in writing, and charge nothing on most jobs if nothing comes back.
Nothing recovered, nothing to pay
25 years of bench work behind us
Work starts at £250 + VAT
GDPR compliant · ICO ZC173784
Prefer the phone?
0800 6890668
Free diagnosis · your own case number
BHDR-2026-····
What kind of device is it?
Choose the nearest match; it sets where the bench starts.
Free to look · no obligationReplies usually within the hour
Four Birmingham jobs, and how each one went.
More jobs from the file →BH · BHD-2026-8785RECORDED ✓
A Coventry NAS a client had already told to rebuild
Both disks came out of the box and were imaged before anything else went near the array. We put the RAID back together in software and the shared folders opened intact.
BH · BHD-2026-8779RECORDED ✓
A full day's wedding shoot on a card reading empty
An image of the card came first, before any recovery tool touched it. From that copy we rebuilt the directory and carved out every frame at full size.
BH · BHD-2026-8768RECORDED ✓
A DVR that had recorded over the burglary
The recorder's disk was imaged forensically, the closed video format decoded by time stamp, and the hour the insurer needed was exported on its own.
Two ways into the index: the hardware,
or the fault.
Cannot see yours? Ask →
What we take in for recovery
Built-in disksTicking, grinding or dead quiet: new heads and platter-level reads→ External drives of any sizeFailed bridge boards; knocked WD and Seagate portables→ SSD & NVMeController dead: the NAND gets read chip by chip→ iMac, Mac & MacBookAPFS volumes, T2 chips and Apple Silicon machines→ Servers, NAS & RAIDImage every member, then rebuild RAID 5, 10 or 1 in software→ NAS systemsEvery disk imaged first — Synology, QNAP, WD, Buffalo alike→ Cards from camerasSD, microSD and CF that read empty or demand formatting→ Flash drives & sticksPlugs snapped clean off; monolith chips read at the pads→Faults we see
Clicks and beepsSwitch it off now — every click takes more off the platter→ The drive never appearsNo spin-up, no light, nothing listed in the OS→ Erased & lost filesOn a hard disk the data stays put; on an SSD, TRIM clears it→ Formatted or erasedFormatting wipes the index, not the sectors underneath→ Files held to ransomWe never pay a ransom; the originals are frequently still there→ Locked by BitLockerGive us the recovery key and a damaged volume opens→ A fall or a bumpOutside untouched; inside, the heads are parked off track→ Flood or fire damageDo not power it, do not dry it — seal it wet and send it→Exhibits & investigations
Sometimes the disk becomes
an exhibit.
Most cases end the day the files go home. Some do not — a claim, an employment tribunal, a police matter — and those run to forensic standards from the moment the parcel is opened: every image taken behind a write blocker, every handover of the exhibit recorded, and a report written on the assumption that someone will attack it.
Forensic reports that hold up
Computers, disks and other media are imaged first, then examined by a method designed to stand up under cross-examination. Solicitors, employers, insurers and private clients across the West Midlands instruct us.
- Sector-level images with an unbroken chain of custody
- Deleted material recovered and user activity pieced back together
- Plain-English reporting & evidence given in the witness box
- Employee misconduct and stolen company files
Footage pulled off CCTV & DVR
Deleted clips, footage the loop has written over, recordings stuck in a recorder that will not power up: the disk is read by time code and exported in a format the police and insurers accept.
- Wiped recordings and looped-over footage retrieved
- Dead disks lifted from DVRs and NVRs
- Exhibit bundles prepared for a hearing or a claim
- Proprietary formats: Hikvision, Swann, Dahua and the rest
What happens after you post it.
How a job runs →Open a case
Phone the office, or use the triage panel at the head of the page. We log the job and tell you exactly how to pack the device for the post.
Send it in
Tracked, fully insured post to the intake lab in Manchester, or drop it in there yourself. Either way, we cover the postage on the way back.
Diagnosis, no charge
An engineer establishes what has actually broken and how much can realistically be read off it. Free, and you commit to nothing.
One price in writing
No chargeable work starts until that single figure and the findings behind it are in your hands.
Files back to you
What we recover leaves on new media, and the case is not closed until you have been through it yourself.
Birmingham customers, once the files were back.
Read the feedback →Many thanks to you and your team on the recent recovery of the RAID-5 data belonging to one of our most important clients. We are in the legal business and this was the only copy of the data that our client has for several important ongoing court cases.
Scripts for a new TV Show was destroyed when the iMac crashed. You was able to rescue our data within 24 hours.
A big thank you to you guys who not managed to save everything from my very damaged and clicking hard drive, but did so with a commitment to customer service from someone like me who is IT illiterate.
Nothing more is lost while the power stays off.
Every power-up takes a little more off a failing drive. Better to hand it over now — finding out what is left is free.