Lost photos, client files, or a business drive that won't mount? I come to your home or office, check the drive before running anything on it, and give you an honest answer on what can be recovered, with a firm quote before any recovery work starts. One technician handles your drive from start to finish.
The most common reason data becomes unrecoverable is what happens after the failure, not the failure itself. Until the drive has been assessed:
Family photos and videos, school and tax documents, an external drive that stopped showing up, a laptop that won't boot, or files deleted by mistake. Most of these are logical failures, and the data is usually still on the drive.
Office workstations, shared drives, external backup drives, and small-office NAS units, including degraded RAID arrays. I work at your office whenever possible, around your hours, and nothing is written to the original drives. When the files are back, I can make sure backups are actually running. Ongoing support is on the IT support page.
Logical failures are problems with the file system, partition table, or directory structure while the drive hardware still works. Deleted files, an accidentally formatted drive, a drive that shows as "RAW" or asks to be formatted, or an external drive that vanished after being unplugged. These are usually recoverable on-site, often in a few hours.
Physical failures are damaged read/write heads, a failed circuit board, a seized motor, water damage, or an SSD whose controller has locked. These need a cleanroom or chip-level lab. Running software on them first lowers the odds, so I tell you immediately if that's the situation, and the drive only leaves with your consent.
Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba and other drives that click, beep, are very slow, or aren't detected at all. Clicking usually means the read/write heads are failing, so the drive should be powered off right away. If the hardware still works, the drive is imaged and the files are recovered from the copy.
SATA and NVMe SSDs (Samsung, Crucial, WD, Kingston and others) that vanish from the system, show the wrong size, or appear under a strange name like "SATAFIRM S11." That usually means a controller or firmware failure, which needs chip-level lab work. Deleted files are harder on an SSD than on a hard drive: Windows and macOS tell the SSD to erase freed space (TRIM), often within minutes. If you deleted something from an SSD, stop using the computer now. Many MacBooks and thin laptops have the SSD soldered to the board, so recovery depends on getting the board working.
Often the drive is fine and only Windows or another part has failed. I copy your files off before any repair. Many newer Windows 11 laptops encrypt the drive (BitLocker or Device Encryption) by default. If yours does, the files can only be read with the recovery key, which is usually saved in your Microsoft account at aka.ms/myrecoverykey. It's worth finding before the visit.
When an external drive stops showing up, the cause is often the cable, the enclosure or its small USB board, not the disk inside. Some Western Digital external drives encrypt data on that USB board, so taking the disk out and connecting it directly shows nothing. Bring the whole drive, cable and power adapter included.
Camera, drone and dashcam cards, and USB sticks that say "you need to format the disk" or show as empty. Don't format them. Most are logical problems and recoverable. Cards that are cracked or bent need a specialised lab.
Small-office and home NAS units (Synology, QNAP, WD My Cloud) and degraded or failed RAID arrays. Don't rebuild or reinitialize the array until the drives are imaged; a rebuild on a weak drive can make the loss permanent.
Examples are based on real jobs, with details combined and anonymized for privacy.
A Gatineau accounting firm's four-bay NAS dropped offline mid-week, and their backups had silently stopped months earlier. The array was RAID 5 with one drive already dead and a second throwing reallocated-sector errors, one bad read away from total loss. Before any rebuild, I imaged the failing drive sector by sector to a fresh disk, letting the tool skip unstable sectors instead of stressing a dying drive. With that clone and the surviving drives, I reassembled the array read-only, verified parity, and recovered the full 2.3TB: every client file, database, and shared folder. The work was done at their office, and nothing was written to the original drives.
An Orléans customer's Seagate external drive stopped showing up after it was unplugged without ejecting, and she had been told elsewhere the photos were gone. The drive sounded healthy, which pointed to a logical failure: the partition table was corrupted but the data was intact. I imaged the drive, rebuilt the file system from the copy, and moved every photo to a new drive in about two hours.
Every recovery is quoted after the assessment, because the work depends on what actually went wrong:
The assessment is free, the quote is firm before any recovery starts, and if nothing can be recovered, you don't pay for the recovery. If a lab is needed, its cost is quoted and approved by you first. More on how pricing works.
Hardwired IT is a one-technician business, so I am the only person who handles your drive. I open files only as far as needed to confirm the recovery worked, recovered data goes onto your storage, and I don't keep copies after the job.
Most recoveries I do happen because a backup had quietly stopped working. After your files are back, I can set up automatic, tested backups for your home or office. See backup and data protection.
Tell me what happened and I'll call you back. Homes and businesses across Ottawa and Gatineau.
Call (613) 416-9482, email info@hardwiredit.ca, or use the form for a free quote.
“Showed up right on time. Felt very comfortable having him in my home, my animals and baby daughter loved him. He saves the data and photos recovered off my dads computer after he died.”
“The best service anyone could get. he saved my data and my laptop. He is a savior. 5/5 for everything”
“Stephane absolutely saved my bacon and my data on my dead laptop. He also was able to provide me with a back up computer and I was able to complete a on line course that I was 93 percent complete and fairly desperate to finish, as a deadline loomed. Super grateful and highly recommended.”
“Stephane is the best. My computer crashed . We worked together to backup and restore my data. And make it faster. I was so discourage before and now I am so happy. Price is very reasonable. Thank you Stephane”
Often, yes. Deleted files, corrupted drives, and drives that won't boot are usually recoverable. I assess the drive first and tell you honestly what is recoverable before any charges.
Usually the goal isn't to repair the failing drive, it's to get your files off it safely and replace it. If the drive can still be read, I image it first, recover your files and move everything to a new SSD. A drive with physical damage (clicking, grinding or not spinning) needs a clean-room lab, and I'll tell you that upfront before any work or charge.
It depends on the type of failure, the drive, and whether a cleanroom lab is needed. The assessment is free, you get a firm quote before any recovery work starts, and if nothing can be recovered, you don't pay for the recovery.
Logical failures (deleted files, corrupted partitions, drives that won't mount) are usually handled on-site. Drives with physical damage, such as clicking heads or a seized motor, need a cleanroom lab. I tell you which it is up front and only send a drive to a lab with your consent.
Logical recovery from a working drive typically takes 1 to 3 hours on-site. Lab recovery for physically damaged drives typically takes 5 to 10 business days.
Yes. Office workstations, external business drives, shared folders, and small-office NAS devices, including RAID arrays. I work around your business hours to keep downtime short, and the work is done at your office whenever possible.
Hardwired IT is a one-technician business, so I am the only person who handles your drive. I open files only as far as needed to confirm the recovery worked, recovered data goes onto your storage, and I don't keep copies after the job.
Not necessarily. Some Samsung EVO and Crucial MX500 and BX500 SSDs fail at the controller or firmware level while the data on the flash chips is still intact. I diagnose these on-site, and when chip-level work is needed, I coordinate it with a lab.
Power it off now and stop using it. Clicking usually means the read/write heads are failing, and every minute it runs can destroy data. Do not freeze it, open it, or run recovery software. Call for an assessment.
Yes. After a recovery, I can set up automatic backups for your home or office so a failed drive becomes an inconvenience instead of a loss.