Cause of loss · files that are no longer there
Stop using that machine, then tell us what kind of drive the file was on, as this second question will settle most of it. When a delete is used on a hard disk, the name of the file is removed from the directory index and the clusters are made available for use by other files. These clusters keep their data until another file needs the space, which could be days or weeks later. An SSD does not retain the information in the way that a hard disk does. The controller clears the cells with TRIM, and they are cleared whether anyone wants them back or not, usually before anyone has decided what to do. Each case is covered below, and both reach this bench from Nottingham. Cards and sticks cost £250 + VAT. Drives cost £300 + VAT. There is no charge for the assessment, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.
Ask an engineer and the first look is free
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| What it looks like | What usually causes it | What that means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Gone, and not in the Recycle Bin either | Not placed in the Recycle Bin: Shift+Delete, a card, a stick, or something over the size limit | Nothing more gets written to it |
| Larger than the bin will take | Windows deleted it immediately; the bin never held it | What was in it is usually intact |
| Missing from a camera card or a USB stick | No bin exists on a card or a stick, so the entry is gone from the index straight away | Take it out, then leave it alone |
| Everything went after a sync | OneDrive or similar has carried across a deletion made on another machine | Look in that service's own online bin |
| A folder you use every day, now empty | Somebody deleted it, a sync failed, or you are in a second profile | Turn it off before you go looking |
| An SSD, and the file has gone from the listing | TRIM has reached the controller, which clears the freed blocks within seconds | Unplug it this minute |
Your case number is assigned when the item is received. Then an engineer works out what went wrong (no charge). At this point, you receive a basic summary of which parts are recoverable and which are not. You also receive a single written quote for the price of the recovery. Accept the quoted price or turn it down, and there is no obligation to pay anything.
If you leave a computer switched on, it will write to its own disk all day long without asking anyone: thumbnail cache files, browser files, an update unpacking in the background. Each one of these writes goes to whatever space is available, including the space your file used to occupy. So the disk comes out, and it is imaged.
With luck, if the original directory index survived, then names, dates and folder structure will return along with the file contents. If not, files will be individually extracted from the image using their own format signature.
Numbers listed on a report prove very little. Instead, we open every recovered file here and personally check everything you've flagged as important.
A complete file list will be provided before any invoicing. Simply say "yes" or "no" to what we found: yes means it is billed, no means it is not, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. What we find is posted to you on media purchased specifically for your case, at no additional cost to you. We consider the process complete once you have opened those files yourself on your own computer.
One keystroke, two very different clocks. Bytes written to platters may stay intact for years, and only disappear once another file is given the space they occupied. Do the same on an SSD and TRIM can have those cells emptied within minutes. Same action, opposite result: that is why the first question here is about the drive rather than the file, and why a free assessment settles it on day one.
A trade counter in Lincoln used a single keystroke to delete a whole year of bookkeeping on the office machine, bypassing the bin. The drive was imaged the day it arrived and the index rebuilt from that image instead of the original disk. The folder came back whole, with all the original file names and dates.
How likely recovery is depends much more on the medium than on the file. On a hard disk with platters, everything stays in place in its sectors until another file needs that space, so most of these jobs end well. On an SSD running TRIM, those blocks are often cleared before anyone even shuts the computer down.
Not on a hard disk. All Shift+Delete does is skip the bin; either way the clusters are freed, and the bytes inside them do not move an inch. The Recycle Bin has only ever been a convenience feature, never a protective one.
No. Once you confirm the prompt on a USB stick or a camera card, Windows deletes the file immediately, with nothing kept in reserve. What was written normally stays in the flash memory chips, and that is what we read: the chips themselves, not the directory entries above them.
Because the drive manages its own storage. Under TRIM, once the file system says which blocks it no longer needs, the controller clears them ahead of time, and none of it surfaces anywhere you can see. An SSD gives you minutes; a hard disk can give you weeks.
The look costs nothing. It gives you a file listing of what opened and what did not, along with the cost of finishing the job, in writing, before anything chargeable begins. In most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Do not switch the drive on until you have that listing.