CF · CDF-2026-0804LOGGED ✓
A decade of family photos on a ticking 2TB Seagate
We fitted a donor head stack, read the platters around the scored ring, and rebuilt the photo library from the image rather than the disk.
Data recovery bench · Cardiff · Newport · Barry · the Valleys · Vale of Glamorgan
Data recovery in Cardiff. The drive has died; your files usually have not.
An external that clicks and never mounts. A camera card that wants formatting. A USB stick snapped at the plug, a Mac frozen at the flashing folder, a RAID missing a member, a wallet.dat on a failed disk. Wherever in Cardiff and South Wales it comes from, the data is usually still there. Looking costs nothing, the quote arrives as one figure on paper, and on most jobs no recovery means no bill.
No files back, no fee on most jobs
A quarter-century at the bench
Recoveries from £250 + VAT
GDPR compliant · ICO ZC173784
Rather just ring?
0800 6890668
Free diagnosis · your own reference
CDR-2026-····
What are we looking at?
Pick whichever is closest. It sets the first test we run.
Costs nothing · no commitmentWe normally reply inside an hour
Four Cardiff cases, and what came back.
Browse the full casebook →CF · CDF-2026-0785LOGGED ✓
A Newport NAS already halfway through a rebuild
Both drives were lifted out of the unit and imaged first, with nothing else allowed near the array. Rebuilding the RAID happened virtually, and every shared folder opened as it should.
CF · CDF-2026-0779LOGGED ✓
A whole wedding on an SD card showing nothing
The card was imaged before any recovery software went near it. Working from that copy, we repaired the directory and carved each frame back at full resolution.
CF · CDF-2026-0768LOGGED ✓
A burglary the DVR had already recorded over
The recorder's disk was imaged behind a write blocker, its proprietary video format decoded by time code, and the single hour the insurer wanted exported on its own.
Find it by the device,
or by what went wrong.
Not listed? Ask us →
Media and machines we recover
The disk insideTicking, grinding or silent: donor heads and reads at platter level→ External and portable drivesDead USB bridge boards; dropped WD and Seagate portables→ SSD & NVMeController gone: we read the NAND chip by chip→ Macs and MacBooksAPFS volumes, T2 security chips, Apple Silicon Macs→ Servers, arrays & NASEvery member imaged, then RAID 1, 5 or 10 rebuilt virtually→ NAS drivesSynology, QNAP, WD, Buffalo — each disk imaged before anything→ Cards out of camerasSD, microSD, CFexpress and CF cards that show up blank→ USB & flash drivesConnectors snapped off; monolith chips wired at the pads→Fault by fault
Ticks and beepsPower it down now — each click costs you more of the platter→ The drive is invisibleNo spin-up, no light, no entry in the BIOS→ Deleted or lost filesA hard disk keeps the data; on an SSD, TRIM wipes it→ Formatted or wipedA format clears the index and leaves the sectors below→ Ransomware encryptionNo ransom is ever paid; the originals often survive on disk→ BitLocker lockoutWith your recovery key, a damaged volume can be opened→ A knock or a dropCasing unmarked; inside, the heads sit off the track→ Soaked or scorchedNever power it up or dry it out — bag it damp and post it→Legal & insurance work
Some disks end up
as court evidence.
Most cases finish the day your files go home. A few do not — an insurance claim, a tribunal, a police enquiry — and those follow forensic procedure from the hour the box is opened. Every image is taken behind a write blocker. Every movement of the exhibit is logged. The report is written expecting a hostile expert to pull at it.
Reports that stand up in court
Computers, disks and cards are imaged first, then examined by a documented method that will not fall apart under questioning. Insurers, employers, solicitors and private clients across South Wales send us work.
- Sector-by-sector images with a documented chain of custody
- Deleted material restored and a timeline of user activity built
- Plain-English findings & testimony given under oath
- Staff misconduct and company data walking out
Video off CCTV & DVR recorders
Clips deleted, overwritten by the loop, or trapped inside a recorder that no longer powers on. We index the disk against its time codes, then export the part you need in a format police and insurers will take.
- Erased and overwritten recordings brought back
- Failed disks taken out of DVRs and NVRs
- Exhibit bundles ready for a tribunal or an insurer
- Closed formats: Hikvision, Dahua, Swann and others
What we do once it arrives.
The seven stages →Log the job
Ring us, or work through the triage panel at the top of this page. We raise a case number and tell you exactly how to wrap the device for its journey.
Get it to us
Send it by insured, tracked post to the intake lab in Bristol, or drop it in yourself. Return postage is on us whichever route you take.
The free look
An engineer works out which part has failed and how much can realistically be pulled off it. No charge, and no obligation on you.
A written quote
Nothing billable begins until you hold that one figure and the findings that produced it.
Your data returns
Whatever we recover travels back on fresh media, and the job stays open until you have checked it over.
What Cardiff customers said when it was over.
See what people said →Many thanks to Cardiff Data Recovery and your data recovery engineers on the recent recovery of the HP RAID-5 data belonging to our client.
There were years worth of my irreplaceable Pictures and Videos on my Windows computer which had a boot error.
I switched on my Dell laptop to see a message that all of my files were encrypted and I had to pay to get them back.
An unplugged drive keeps whatever it still holds.
Each power-up costs you a little more of a dying drive. Take it out of service now and let us look — finding out what survives is free.