Case Studies
Every case is confidential. Every outcome is real.
Solicitors, insurers, businesses and private clients bring us their worst day of data loss. Here is the range of failures we resolve, described honestly — without exposing who they were for.
I.
How we share this
Real work. No names.
Chain of custody and client confidentiality run through everything this laboratory does, so we do not publish case files, drive photos or client identities.
What follows are recurring patterns drawn from genuine engagements — the device, the failure, and the outcome — with every identifying detail removed. It is the same standard we apply whether the client is a private individual or a High Court solicitor.
- One chain of custody. Every device is logged, tracked and worked on in our own Belfast laboratory — never couriered on to a third party.
- Diagnosis first, fixed quote second. No case below started with a guess at price — every one had the fault identified before a figure was agreed.
- NDAs on request. Routine for legal, corporate and public-sector instructions, and available for anyone who asks.
This page sits alongside the rest of the Data Forensics laboratory — the same in-house team, process and pricing you will find across every service.
II.
By sector
Different clients. Same lab, same process.
i
Legal & Insurance
Evidence preservation, deleted data and forensic reporting for solicitors, barristers and insurers working to court and claim deadlines.
Learn more →ii
Corporate & IT Teams
Failed servers, RAID arrays and NAS units where downtime and data loss carry a direct business cost.
Learn more →iii
Public Sector & Government
Secure handling, documented chain of custody and certified destruction for departments and public bodies.
Learn more →iv
Private Clients
Irreplaceable personal data — family photos, video and documents — recovered from failed drives, SSDs and phones.
Learn more →III.
Recurring cases
Failures we see — and resolve — every week.
01Two-drive failure in a law firm's RAID 5Degraded array, a failed rebuild attempted before we were called, evidence needed against a filing deadline. Reconstructed from individually recovered members.RAID →02Firmware-locked SSD with no backupDrive stopped being detected overnight in a small business's only workstation. Firmware repaired in the lab, data verified and returned within days.SSD →03Virtualised server down mid-migrationCorrupted datastore during a planned move, VMs unbootable. Recovered from cloned images with databases verified mounting before return.Server →04Water-damaged phone needed for a hearingHandset would not power on with messages relevant to an active case. Data extracted at chip level under documented chain of custody.Mobile →05NAS failure across a small officeTwo-bay NAS with one dead drive and one degrading, holding the only copy of shared company files. Rebuilt from recovered member images.NAS →06Certified destruction at end of leaseA public body's decommissioned drives requiring documented, certified destruction before equipment left the building.Destruction →
IV.
Real cases
Hard Drive recoveries.
01Red wine met a laptop. The data survived.Red wine hit a Compaq CQ58 laptop with a student's exam files on it. HGST drive imaged same day, 100% recovery, files back inside two hours.Read →02Knocked off the desk. Sage data recovered anyway.A knocked WD3200AAJS 320GB drive, both read heads damaged, business-critical Sage 50 data. How our cleanroom recovered it in full.Read →03A 24-hour deadline. A 98% recovery.A failed 2TB Seagate drive in a Dell Inspiron 15 recovered at 98% in 12 hours, inside a 24-hour window before a Dell warranty repair. A Belfast case study.Read →04A failed Seagate can hold years of footage. It rarely takes them with it.Seagate or LaCie 4TB/5TB external hard drive not working? In-house Belfast lab recovery for Portable, One Touch, Backup Plus, Rugged and more. Fixed quotes.Read →05Two dead Seagate drives, one JBOD NAS, and a hard lesson in redundancy.A week of failed Seagate drives, including a 2-bay NAS in JBOD that lost both disks. What failed, what we did, and what came back.Read →06A dead Seagate drive, a Dell warranty repair, and a 24-hour window.A failed 2TB Seagate drive, a Dell warranty repair, and a 24-hour window. How we recovered 98% of the data before the laptop went back to Dell.Read →07A dropped laptop, a clicking drive, and a dissertation due in two days.Dropped Dell Vostro laptop, clicking HGST 500GB drive, a dissertation due in two days. How hardware imaging recovered 32GB without opening the drive.Read →08A dropped laptop, a clicking drive. The platters didn't survive.A dropped laptop, a clicking 1TB HGST drive, and what our cleanroom microscope found on the platters. An honest case where recovery wasn't possible.Read →09A full head crash, and an honest answer.A Hitachi 750GB drive with a full head crash — what that damage means, why some drives genuinely can't be recovered, and what not to do first.Read →10An Iomega drive, clicking and undetected. All the data came back in under three hours.An Iomega external drive clicking and undetected on a Mac — a Seagate BarraCuda 7200.12 with bad sectors, imaged and fully recovered in under 3 hours.Read →11The laptop wouldn't boot. The data still came back.A laptop wouldn't boot and the hard drive was clicking, with no backup in place. How a firmware fault was diagnosed and 100% of the data recovered.Read →12It booted for two seconds. Then nothing.A Lenovo Yoga 2 13" booted for two seconds then died. A failed WD hybrid drive with a non-standard connector — recovered within 24 hours.Read →13Heads stuck to the platter. Data recovered in full.A Samsung 1TB ST1000LM024 laptop drive with heads stuck to the platter after a drop — recovered in full in our class 10 Belfast cleanroom. Read the case.Read →14Opened at home first. Recovered in the lab anyway.A Seagate 250GB Momentus Thin, clicking and beeping, opened by the client before it reached us. How our cleanroom recovered the SQL database anyway.Read →15A boot error. A financial database on the line.A Seagate Barracuda 1TB drive holding a financial database failed with a boot error. Diagnosis found a fried PCB — fixed for £360 in under 48 hours.Read →16A clicking Seagate BarraCuda. 98% of a family's memories, back.A clicking external Seagate BarraCuda 3TB, undetected by Windows: heads replaced, 98% of 1.8TB of family photos and music recovered in 4 days.Read →17Dropped, clicking, and locked by FileVault. Every file came back.A dropped 1TB Seagate Backup Plus, clicking heads stuck to the media, and FileVault encryption on top. 100% of the client's data recovered.Read →18A burnt circuit board. Not a lost drive.A WD Caviar Blue 500GB with a burnt PCB and blown fuse: safe diagnosis, why a swapped board alone won't work, and a real fixed quote. Belfast lab.Read →19A dropped My Passport, clicking on arrival. 99% recovered in four hours.A 500GB WD My Passport arrived clicking after a drop. How a same-day cleanroom head swap recovered 99% of the data in four hours.Read →20Encrypted, damaged, and still 96% recovered.A hardware-encrypted WD My Passport Ultra 1TB with damaged heads, recovered via donor drives and an encryption chip transfer. 96% of the data back.Read →21Dropped and dead. Over 90% of the data came back.A dropped Western Digital 1TB My Passport with crashed heads. Cleanroom head replacement and an overnight session recovered over 90% of the data.Read →22Dropped, clicking, undetected. Over 99% came back.A dropped WD Caviar Green 1.5TB clicked and wasn't detected. Cleanroom head swap and DDI4 imaging recovered over 99% with no data loss.Read →23Two drives, one weekend, 6.5TB back before Monday.Case study: a 2TB WD My Passport and a 5TB LaCie drive, both failed before a broadcast deadline, recovered with 6.5TB of data returned in one weekend.Read →24Dropped, grinding, silent. Brought back and imaged.Case study: a dropped WD My Passport Ultra 1TB, grinding and clicking, recovered with a cleanroom head swap, full imaging and file system rebuild.Read →25A drive gone RAW overnight. 100% of the data back by lunchtime.A WD Scorpio 750GB drive turned RAW from bad sectors over its partition data. Imaged and 100% recovered in under 24 hours. Read the case study.Read →
V.
Real cases
SSD recoveries.
01SanDisk SSD Plus, 240GB, stopped mounting. Every sector still had to be fought for.A SanDisk SSD Plus 240GB with worn NAND and a stuck controller, recovered in our Belfast lab with custom firmware, a rebuilt translator and sector imaging.Read →02Lost the footage from the shoot? It's rarely gone for good.Worldwide data recovery for RED MINI-MAG, JinniMag, Longtake and KipperTie SSD camera modules. Fixed quotes, fast worldwide courier, in-house lab.Read →03We've written 28 petabytes to one SSD. It still hasn't failed.Live, unsponsored SSD endurance test from our Belfast lab: Samsung 990 Pro past 28PB written, 990 EVO past 20x its rated TBW, versus budget NVMe rivals.Read →04No drive to remove. No problem.Data recovery for soldered BGA SSDs on Surface Pro, Dell XPS, Acer and MacBook laptops. In-house chip-level lab work, fixed quotes, UK & Ireland.Read →05The SSD is soldered to the board. Your data isn't gone.Soldered BGA SSD on a Surface Pro, Dell XPS, Acer or MacBook? We recover data from motherboard-soldered storage, including BitLocker and T2 encryption.Read →061700TB in, still writing. We put a worn SSD to the ultimate test.A worn Samsung 990 Pro with 1700TB+ of writes takes on three budget Chinese NVMe SSDs in our live endurance test — real wear data, not spec sheets.Read →07A worn Samsung 990 Pro. Three brand-new challengers.We push a Samsung 990 Pro already at 1700TB of writes against three new budget NVMe SSDs, live, to see which endurance claims actually hold up.Read →
VI.
Real cases
Apple recoveries.
01A dropped MacBook Pro. A full recovery.A dropped 2011 MacBook Pro with a failed Seagate hard drive — recovered and cloned to a new SSD by our Belfast lab. Real case, real numbers.Read →02Smashed with a sledgehammer. Not written off.A sledgehammer-damaged WD 500GB WD5000AAKS from an iMac: PCB swap, cleanroom platter transplant, donor heads. A real case from our Belfast lab.Read →03A 2012 iMac's hard drive, fully recovered.Case study: a 2012 Apple iMac arrives with a failing hard drive. Full data recovery, then a faster replacement drive and extra RAM before return.Read →04A clicking Seagate from an iMac. 99.95% of the data came back.A clicking Seagate BarraCuda 7200.12 pulled from an Apple iMac — cleanroom head replacement and 99.95% of the data recovered. Read the case.Read →05Stuck on the Apple logo. Twice, for two different reasons.A 2011 MacBook with a failing hard drive and a corrupted user account, recovered and rebuilt onto SSD in our Belfast laboratory. Read the case study.Read →06Written off twice. Recovered anyway.Liquid-damaged 15" MacBook Pro Touch Bar, declared unrecoverable by Apple and a third party. Our lab repaired the board and recovered the soldered SSD.Read →07The iMac wouldn't boot. The drive was clicking.A clicking Seagate drive inside a Belfast client's Apple iMac, recovered by head swap and returned within 24 hours. Read the case study.Read →08Liquid-damaged and dead on arrival — the research data still came home.Liquid-damaged MacBook Pro 2020 (A2251) with no power at all — board-level repair recovered a PhD researcher's data without replacing the T2 SSD.Read →09A failed SSD. A same-day deadline.A 2012 MacBook Pro with a failed 256GB SSD and critical business data, recovered same day in our Belfast lab. Real case, real numbers.Read →10One failed drive. Three days to find every fault.A 2011 MacBook wouldn't boot past the Apple logo — a failing drive, a worn cable, then a corrupted user account. Read how our lab solved all three.Read →11The T2 chip was built to stop this. We get through it anyway.Failed 2018–2020 MacBook Pro Touch Bar with soldered SSD and T2 chip? Apple can't recover it — our Belfast lab can, in the majority of cases.Read →
VII.
Real cases
RAID, NAS & Server recoveries.
01Two drives down, a RAID 5 rebuilt within 24 hours.Case study: a Dell PowerEdge T110 RAID 5 crashes with two drives down. On-site imaging and a lab rebuild recover the server's data in 24 hours.Read →02Moving on from Drobo? Your data comes with you.Retiring a Drobo NAS or DAS? We copy your data onto Synology, QNAP or new drives, verified file by file — UK-wide courier or Belfast drop-off.Read →03Two drives down on a RAID 10, a third about to follow.Case study: an HPE ProLiant MicroServer's RAID 10 array fails as two drives exceed their duty life. Belfast lab rebuild restores the VMware VMs.Read →04A RAID 0 that wouldn't mount, rebuilt block by block.Case study: a LaCie 2big Thunderbolt 2 RAID 0 stopped mounting. Hex analysis and a rebuild at the correct 4KB block size recovered all the data.Read →05A 16-drive QNAP array, fully recovered.A 16-drive QNAP TS-EC1680U with 3 failed WD Red drives and a failed rebuild — imaged, rebuilt and recovered by our Belfast lab. Full case study.Read →06The wrong drive was pulled. Every file still came back.A three-drive RAID 5 server crashed when a healthy drive was pulled by mistake. Our lab rebuilt the array and recovered 100% of the client's data.Read →07One accidental reformat. No backup. Data recovered anyway.A small business accidentally reformatted its only WD My Cloud NAS. DIY software missed the vital files — our Belfast lab rebuilt the file system in 48 hours.Read →08The control PC is 20 years old. It doesn't have to fail.Legacy SCADA, Citect, AVEVA and CNC control PCs virtualized onto modern hardware — dongles and legacy interfaces preserved. Belfast lab, UK-wide.Read →09Spilled, then knocked off the desk. 99% of the data came back.A spilled drink, a knocked WD Red 3TB drive, grinding and undetected. How our Belfast cleanroom recovered 99% of the data in under two days.Read →
VIII.
Real cases
USB, SD Card & Flash recoveries.
01A USB stick failed. A dissertation didn't.SanDisk USB stick undetected before a dissertation deadline. Chip-off recovery restored 220 pages at 98% integrity in our Belfast laboratory.Read →02How reliable are USB pen drives, really?We're write-testing three identical SanDisk 32GB USB pen drives to destruction to see how much data NAND flash takes before it fails. Live results.Read →03A USB connector was torn away. The data wasn't.A SanDisk 8GB USB stick's connector was ripped off when a laptop was dropped. Direct-wire repair in our Belfast lab restored the data within a day.Read →04A snapped connector. A full recovery in two hours.SanDisk Ultra 32GB USB drive with a snapped connector and mainboard damage from a laptop drop, recovered in Belfast — all 8GB back in two hours.Read →05One click reformatted the card. Every photo still came back.A Belfast client's SD card was accidentally reformatted after going undetected. Worn memory cells were the real fault — 100% of the photos and videos came back.Read →06Dropped, then clicking. A Seagate Expansion recovered anyway.A Belfast school's Seagate 2TB Expansion drive was dropped, damaged its heads, and started clicking. How our cleanroom head swap got the data back.Read →07The USB stick stopped being seen. The data hadn't gone.A business USB stick failed after an unsafe ejection and stopped being detected. TSOP48 chip-off recovery in our Belfast lab returned every file.Read →
IX.
Real cases
CCTV & DVR recoveries.
01A Western Digital 250GB IDE drive, ten years inside a CCTV system.A 10-year-old 250GB Western Digital IDE drive from a CCTV system, recovered in our Belfast lab — raw footage reconstructed from a degrading drive.Read →02A Toshiba RD88DT recorder's hard drive, ten years and 65 family videos deep.A 160GB Seagate IDE drive from a Toshiba RD88DT Freeview+ recorder failed with bad sectors — 65 family videos recovered in our Belfast lab.Read →
X.
Real cases
Ransomware & Forensics recoveries.
XI.
Real cases
Other Recoveries recoveries.
01Drobo is gone. Your data isn't.Migrating off a discontinued Drobo? We copy your data, structure and permissions intact, to Synology, QNAP or DAS storage. Fixed quotes, Belfast lab.Read →02The robot stopped. The data doesn't have to be gone.Storage failure on a KUKA robotics or industrial automation system? In-house Belfast lab recovers HDD, SSD & RAID from any interface. UK-wide courier.Read →03One bad rebuild attempt. Fixed remotely, in a day.Case study: a Dell server's Storage Spaces array crashed after a failed rebuild. Remote consulting diagnosed it and had every VM back in 24 hours.Read →
10+
Years in practice
01
In-house lab · no outsourcing
24/7
Critical response line
5.0
Google rating · 75 reviews
I.
Questions
What clients ask before instructing us.
Can you show me a case like mine?
We cannot share specific client files, but describe recurring patterns like the ones above so you can see how similar failures were resolved. Tell us your situation and an engineer will give you an honest, specific view of your own case.
Will my case stay confidential?
Yes. Every device is logged and worked on in-house under a documented chain of custody, and NDAs are available on request — standard practice for our legal, corporate and public-sector work.
Why do you not name clients or show drive photos?
Because the data involved is often sensitive — personal, medical, financial or evidential. Protecting that is part of the job, not a marketing choice.
Do these patterns reflect typical pricing too?
Broadly, yes — see our published price list for starting figures by device and failure type. Your own case still gets a fixed quote after diagnosis, not an estimate from a pattern.
What sectors do you work with most?
Legal firms, insurers, IT departments, public bodies and private individuals across the UK and Ireland — the case types above are drawn from all of them.
Diagnosis first
Tell us what happened to your data.
An engineer will give you an honest recoverability view and a fixed quote — the same process behind every case on this page.