The sudden loss of wedding photos during the shoot, a camera that suddenly wants to format a card, a microSD snapped right in half: we retrieve photographs and video from memory cards for photographers and families around Staines and the surrounding areas of Surrey.
We give a complimentary diagnostic with every memory card job, plus one fixed price in writing before we begin any work.
In most cases you only pay if we recover your data. For all electronic and mechanical work, including chip-level repairs, 50% is required upfront, with the balance only payable if we recover your data. For BitLocker, ransomware, CCTV/DVR and forensic jobs, full payment is made upfront once you accept the fixed quote. Full details regarding our costs can be found on the data recovery cost page.
Each memory card job begins by identifying the symptom(s) associated with the failure; these twelve types of fault represent just about everything sent to our bench.
If the camera, card reader and computer cannot read anything off the card at all, then the card's controller or firmware has failed inside.
That message indicates that the index on the card has become corrupted but the images below remain intact; no matter what you do, do not hit "format"!
Until new images are written over where they were originally stored, they have not been removed, so put the card aside and stop taking pictures!
A format done in-camera is almost always the fast "quick format", leaving most of what existed on the card under the surface.
Adapters and slots break microSD cards all the time; however, since we can access the surviving contents of a microSD card directly using monolith work, they are recoverable.
A 64GB card reporting 30MB available indicates the controller has entered "fallback" mode; this is a chip-level recovery.
Either the failing controller has "locked down", or the small switch on an SD card has performed a similar action.
Cards from washing machines and with cracked shells are recovered more often than not: cleaned up, repaired and then read down to chip level.
A memory card's label may say 512GB (for example) while the flash inside is really only 16GB; when you write enough data to "wrap around", files appear to disappear. Whatever was actually written and stored, we will recover.
Removing a memory card mid-copy causes a loss of file information by ripping the file table; a complete sector image of the card is captured and your files are extracted from it.
Dead or read-only controllers are common failure points for SanDisk SD and microSD cards; however, the NAND underneath frequently survives intact.
Heavy use of Lexar and Sony professional memory cards wears out the individual cells, leading to corrupted frames during 4K and burst shooting.
Memory cards pack NAND flash into a small shell with very little protection, so corruption and physical damage are frequent, especially if they have been used for years in cameras, dash cams and drone equipment. We work with SD, SDHC, SDXC, microSD, CompactFlash, XQD and CFexpress cards, and all recovery is done from a forensic image of the original card, so nothing we do will cause additional harm.
Work at the chip level is called for when a microSD has been physically snapped apart, or when the card is electrically dead. In this case, the raw data is read directly from the memory and then pieced back together to create your original files. Monolith cards, where the whole card is one single sealed chip, are the most difficult jobs, and the outcome depends on the damage to your card. That is why our free diagnostic is so helpful: we will let you know exactly where you stand before you spend a penny.
Bringing a card back online is best described as flash memory surgery, and it shares a bench with the sticks and monoliths:
Bypasses the dead controller entirely and communicates directly with the NAND memory; software is then used to rebuild the original logic of the controller. That's how a lifeless card or stick is reached.
Memory chips are removed from the failed circuit board using precisely controlled hot air and infrared heat, high enough to melt the solder holding them in place without harming the data.
For sealed one-piece (monolith) cards and sticks, there are no separate memory chips to remove. Instead, thin hair-like probes and extensive libraries of pinouts gain access to the memory while it is still in place.
Custom software removes the XOR, ECC and wear-levelling layered on top of your data, so a raw dump of the NAND memory becomes your folders and files again.
Where the connectors or the tracks on the circuit board have failed, they are rebuilt under magnification; with physical damage, that repair is often the entire recovery.
Each card and stick is read using a write-blocked reader, so every piece of flash memory sent to us remains unchanged during our testing and repair processes.
Every format passes through, from your car's dashcam microSD to a professional camera body's CFexpress, SD, SDHC, SDXC, CompactFlash and XQD included. The most common failure of SanDisk cards is a dead or read-only controller while the memory chips (NAND) continue to work normally; Lexar and Sony pro cards are prone to wearing their memory cells and losing frames during heavy 4K and burst photography; and cheap or fake microSD cards corrupt or lose storage space as soon as writes wrap around.
Before sending anything, get a quote from us either by telephone or using our free online diagnostic. Then post your hardware to us (tracked and insured), or drop it off at our Guildford laboratory in person.
Sending a drive from a computer, laptop, MacBook, iMac, CCTV/DVR or server? You will need to remove the internal hard drive or SSD and send us just the drive, as we are unable to remove the drive for you. We also cannot recover storage soldered onto a motherboard, such as in Apple Silicon Macs and some thin laptops. Only drives that can be removed from a machine and sent to us can be recovered. If you are unsure whether your device has a removable drive, please call us before sending. RAID, server and SAN drives need to be removed from their enclosure and labelled by bay. For a NAS, send the disks themselves if they are removable, otherwise the entire NAS device. An external single drive should come to us whole, along with its cable and power supply.
↓ Print the booking-in & shipping form (PDF)
Please mark the package for the attention of Guildford Data Recovery, and we will call you as soon as we have diagnosed your media.
Unsure as to how to proceed with sending the item in for recovery? Then simply call 0800 689 0668, or complete the free online diagnostic prior to dispatching the item to obtain your price quotation.
Free diagnostic, fixed quote, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Start now or call the freephone.