PC users experience these effects in different ways. The PC may operate very slowly or not at all. The disk drive may become very noisy or stop spinning completely. The computer may issue a variety of error messages or be unable to read files that have been damaged. In many cases the common factor is that the hard disk has been damaged or important files essential to the computer can no longer be read.

Some failures are sudden and unexpected and there is little that you can do to prepare. However, other types of imminent failure are more obvious - slow response, noises, frequent crashes and error messages. If you get any of these symptoms it is essential to backup your data immediately. If you ignore these problems and continue to use the computer it may not be possible to recover the data later. In some types of failure you only get one chance at data recovery and the action you take now can be critical to the successful recovery of your data.

As specialist we have many tools that are unavailable in computer shops and are more likely to be found in forensic labs. Most computer shops use off the shelf products to attempt to copy your data. The problem is that when they reach a badly damaged area they can get no further than trying to read the data several times, causing further damage in the process.

We have Data Recovery products that can start reading from the end of the data and work towards the start, retrieving data after the badly damaged area. These type of products can copy data between any two points on a disk and are also far more capable of salvaging data from badly damaged areas of the disk. If the hard disk has suffered a 'head crash' and some of the heads have become damaged we are able to switch them off and recover data using the remaining heads. We have many other techniques that we can use including the replacement of failed components to recover data. If your local shop is unable to recover the data why not send the failed hardware to us and let us recover the data. If we don't recover the data there is no charge.