The drive makes a noise it never made before, the computer will not start, the phone fell and stays black, or you deleted a folder you actually needed.
One rule outweighs the rest: stop using it and do not power it back on. Every extra power-on of a failing drive can turn a possible recovery into an impossible one.
Free diagnostics, and we say honestly when the odds are poor.
What the drive maker says, verbatim. Seagate: «stop writing to any media that may be involved»; «do not try to open the device to see what is wrong — hard drives are particularly sensitive to contamination»; «if your drive makes any unusual noises, do not attempt to use any type of utility software»; «shut it down immediately and do not power it up again»; «do not format the drive».
On an SSD the story differs, and it is documented. Microsoft describes the mechanism: deleting a file on a traditional drive is only a change to the file table. On an SSD, TRIM tells the drive those blocks are no longer needed, and Microsoft warns they are «permanently removed from the storage media». So deleted data on an SSD may already be physically gone.
NIST confirms SSDs behave structurally differently. Its media sanitization guidelines call the change «revolutionary (as opposed to evolutionary)» and note that the standard read/write interface does not reach unmapped areas.
And encryption is often already on without you knowing. Microsoft: device encryption is available on Windows Home and turns on at first sign-in with a Microsoft account, with the recovery key attached to that account. Microsoft lists repair work among the triggers of the recovery screen. Hence our rule: the recovery key is obtained before the job, not after.
Phones and tablets: recovery here means getting the device running again. On modern devices the storage is soldered and encryption is on by design: Android's documentation states that «all devices launching with Android 10 and higher are required to use file-based encryption», and Apple documents that setting a passcode automatically enables Data Protection. Reading the chip on its own therefore returns none of your data: the real path is bringing the device — or its board — back to life just long enough to extract a copy. It is model-by-model work, documented in the individual phone and tablet pages; the same principle holds for Macs with soldered storage, covered in the Mac pages.
| Media type | mechanical or SSD: it changes what is still recoverable |
|---|---|
| Logical or physical failure | physical failure on a mechanical drive needs a clean room |
| How many power-ons | each one can worsen a mechanical failure |
| TRIM already run | freed blocks on an SSD are removed permanently |
| Encryption in use | without the recovery key the volume stays unreadable |
| Urgency | recovery is not a fixed-price job: assessed case by case |
| Phones and tablets | soldered storage and encryption by default: the device is revived, model by model |
The factors that actually move the cost of this job. They are not our rules: they depend on how the manufacturer supplies the part, and they are checked at the diagnosis stage before anything is ordered.
ElectrONIK Lab is an independent workshop: it is not an authorised service centre and is not affiliated with the manufacturers. The trademarks named here belong to their respective owners and are used only to identify the devices we work on. Your statutory consumer rights towards whoever carries out the repair are unaffected.
Free diagnostics, a clear quote and the part chosen by you.