Computer crime and forensic data recovery

Computer crime, otherwise known as cybercrime (see here for definition) accounts for a large amount of illegal activity. My laptop was working fine up until quite recently when it was snatched in a robbery. The police were able to recover the laptop for me but when I switched it on, it froze and I turned it off and was getting an error messaging saying ‘Operating system not found’. I had it checked by a local computer company and they say it’s the hard drive that has failed and they can’t fix it. I’ve had the laptop repaired with a new hard drive installed so I can use it again, but if possible I would like to recover as much of the data from the old hard drive as possible – family photos, company accounts (I run a small business) and other information accumulated over the years. It’s a Sony Vaio laptop, and because the computer was damaged during a robbery attempt, I’d like the data recovered using forensic methods so that the crime can be prosecuted at a later date.

I’m seeking to retrieve data (texts/photos/ contacts from my Samsung A3 (still under warranty) that was stolen. I want to avoid getting it all wiped in order to restore access to the computer phone, but I want to prosecute the people responsible for stealing the crime. I’m therefore looking to recover the data so that any submissions required to a legal court are handled in the proper manner. Problem arose when I was suddenly unable to get into it: the device claims (wrongly) that the password I used to open it was incorrect. Visiting Samsung support service at Wembley today; I was told all they could do meant wiping all data; I was advised to look on the internet for a data retrieval service. I can bring phone to a data recovery company on Lombard St. in London to forensically retrieve the data. Phone became slow lately in showing body of new emails – maybe insufficient space?

Mortgage Broker in Manchester – help and advice

I wonder if you can help? – We are a mortgage broker in Manchester and have a Seagate External Hard Drive. The port where the cable plugs in has broken, the bit from the hard drive is actually stuck to the cable. Drive will start up if you hold the cable into the port but connection does not last. how much is it to either to get the port replaced or get all the data downloaded from the hard drive? Please tell me details of you data recovery services.

Was dropped few times. Now makes occasional high-pitched beep noise. The mac can’t read the hard-drive at all. The hard drive contains information about mortgage advice and our brokering details throughout Manchester. Although we work right across the Greater Manchester area we are based in Swinton and Didsbury. We want to especially recover the information about remortgaging and buy to let arrangements as we are moving house.

More details about the hard drive:

The little bit of the hardrive that you use to put the lead in to plug into the computer was getting very loose and the lead had to be held at a certain angle to work but then just stopped working- so now I can’t connect in to my laptop via the lead, us there anyway I could still revive the data?

I hope you can help me. My external hard drive (we are located in Manchester) is failing, my laptop is unable to read it by all means. I tried in a different computer and nothing. I have very valuable (mortgage broker) information in it and I was wondering if you can do something to recover it? Any advice would be very much appreciated as I don’t know what to do.

I hope you can help / offer advice? You can contact the us (the Manchester mortgage brokering team) on 0161 706 0242

SCSI / Tape and old Seagate HDD recovery

I’d like to get a quote to get an SCA UltraSCSI3 300GB drive imaged. The drive is fine however the server it was in has blown power and I have no other devices capable of interfacing with an SCA backplane. If you could give me an idea of a cost and timescale (for your City location) that’d be great.

The hard drive suddenly started making clicking noises, and the computer shut down at that moment.
After I took the hard drive out of the tower, then replaced and reconnected it, and switched on the computer, there was a loud pop. And the power supply emitted a smell of smoke.

500GB SATA HDD from a Dell laptop failed and no longer boots.

Acer laptop Window 7 approx 6 year old showing error 0xc00000e9. I/O error.
I have tried Alt + F10 key but files fail to load.

It has spinning problems and not detected. I was wondering how much would it cost for a data recovery please?

I need a donor drive according to the specification below.
The reading head No. 0 has completely resigned
Can you have one?

st2000dm001
Site TK
PN 1CH164-572
FW CC44
Date 13175

Hi my USB is not being recognised by any computer, I really need some of the work that is on there as I am a final year student at university! Was just wondering if you could get back to me on taking a look at it and how much it will be around if you could get my work back!

I have a DC6150 Data Cartridge tape and it´s necessary to extract the information and convert to a usb memory.

Recovering photos and deleted messages

When it comes to recovering photos and deleted messages from a mobile phone – here are some examples of the excellent work done by UK phone recovery specialists Phone-Recovery, who I wrote about in a previous post here.

I need to retreive a number of deleted messages, photos and whatsapp messgages from my phone, my phone is a One Plus. Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated. I live in Colchester and I am not sure where you are based?

SAMSUNG M3 Portable 1TB
Model: HX-M101TCB/G
Has power but won’t connect/be read by any laptop, just states an error.

Need to recover videos off iPhone 5. The videos were deleted by me and the the phone was updated with the new firmware. I lost the phone and have now found it now need to recover all videos on there. Can this be done

I have deleted all the text messages from a contact and urgently need to get them back. It’s a Samsung galaxy 7. Can you help please!

My Sony Xperia xa1 has water damage, the phone cannot be repaired, but I want to try and retrieve the photos and videos from the phone. How much would this cost?

Ten year old Samsung phone doesn’t switch on, would like old photos and videos

I have a Huawei P9 Lite. I put it through the washing machine and there a lot of pictures and some videos I would like from the internal memory of the phone. I have dried out the phone using rice for 48 hours. If plugged in it will turn on but only the back light to the screen works and the LED flashes red. Sometimes the screen flashes a red battery critically low symbol as if the screen were working fine. Would you be able to help? I can easily travel to your Lombard Street store with the phone.

My phone had a factory reset which has meant I have lost a lot of photos. Can this be recovered and how much would this cost?

iPhone 7 lost password photo retrieval password reset do not have cloud

I have a samsung galaxy s3 and it is dead wont power up. can you give me a quote to recover the contents?

Lumia phones windows 7 & 8
Wanted to see if could get files that had been deleted, the ones should be recent and phones were stopped use straight after

MacBook & iMac hard drives need recovery

Expert Apple Mac data recovery kings Data Clinic recently told us about some of the more bizarre Apple Mac file recoveries they’ve recently been involved in.

The hard drive in our Apple Mac 2012 has failed. It has already been into Apple to check the cable but that was fine. They have said they can still hear it ticking. It is a 2.5 SATA HDD.

My iMac is connected to a WD MyCloud failed and I was unable to access any files previously stored on the drive. Took the drive to Halifax Computers for them to check and they recommended we seek your services. On their inspection they reported that the drive had 64 errors and that the partitions are all raw. The drive has been removed from the WD MyCloud casing and is a 3tb WD Red NAS Hard Drive I’d be keen to understand the costs involved in retrieving the data stored on the drive.

I have a G tech 2TB external hard drive for my iMac. The input seems to have dislodged so I am unable to plug it in, this has happened before with a previous drive but I was able to wedge it back in. In this case it seems that the connector to the hard drive has broken, so it doesn’t work and I can hear something rattling inside.
The last time I got access to it, there wasn’t any problem in terms of accessing data so I think it’s just a hardware issue.
Are you able to have a look at it for me? What would be the price / turnaround for this kind of problem?
I need access to the drive ASAP so it would be great if I could come in today to get it sorted.

My MacBook Pro would not start after I turned it off because some of the apps were being very slow or not opening. I spent a whole day on the phone to Apple Support trying to fix this by using an external hard drive onto which the OS X software had been downloaded and running the computer from that. Tried to find the Macintosh internal drive which was greyed out and attempted to repair and mount disk which did not work. Apple support couldn’t do any more than that and said I should contact a data recovery company – they seemed to think it was likely that the internal disk hadn’t entirely broken down but that a file had corrupted it.
Let me know if you need any more details as to what I have already tried. I need to know if my data is still there quite urgently as I am a student and have essays and dissertations to hand in very soon and mainly need to know how much something like this would cost.

MacBook Pro fails to boot up. Disk utility cannot verify or repair disk.

You can contact Data Clinic from anywhere in the UK by phoning 0871 977 2525.

Recovering deleted SMS Messages

My daughter has a Samsung mobile. She had received sms text messages which could act as evidence to incriminate a man who has seriously assaulted her. She deleted them as a reaction to the assault but 2 weeks later has come forward and gone to the police. I’m hoping you can recover the messages in a form which would suitable to be used as evidence in a criminal prosecution. The phone case and screen is badly damaged from being dropped previously but the system fully functional. If the phone needs to be taken apart I am happy to sacrifice the phone and replace it. If this is possible, how much would it cost for you to recover the texts?

I have a lg nexus 4 that stopped working and would like to recover my data and ams text messages from the internal memory. It seems the motherboard is dead, it wont charge or start. There is no physical damage. Is this something you can provide and how much will it cost?

Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge – SMS text recovery
The phone crashes and won’t power on past the Samsung logo. It displays a black screen with a blue light. All attempts to get to the recovery menu have also failed as it crashes there too. I can’t get the phone to switch on long enough to get my data, pictures and text / sms messages off before it crashes. No combination of buttons to boot the phone have worked

Data Recovery – Phones / SD cards / Hard Drives

Much of the information we keep today is stored digitally. This is fine until something goes wrong and we are no longer able to access our data. When this happens we need to find a skilled data recovery company to assist us. Here are some examples of different digital storage media that requires data recovery and were sent to UK data recovery company Datlabs to have the data extracted.

My phone suddenly stopped working one day with the screen turning black and unresponsive. I tried turning it on but it wasn’t turning on. I also tried to charge the phone but then after a minute or so the phone started overheating. After talking to someone from Samsung support centre, they said the motherboard is broken. I wanted to know whether it was possible to recover the data on my phone.

I have a 64gb SD card which I took on holiday with my camera. It seems to have been corrupted to the point where it is no longer recognised as a storage device on my computer. I was wondering if you would be able to recover the files on it and if so how much that would it be?

I have a 2014 MacBook Air and it has water damage and now will not power on. Is there any way of fixing/recovering the data from this??

I have a WD Elements external hard drive that makes clicking sounds and doesn’t get verified by any PC. I would be very grateful if you could advice me on this.

I need my documents from my hard drive recovered. a local company said the hard drive is damaged and needs a specialised company to do this. can you help?

I have a Toshiba 3TB external hard drive, model number MQ03UBB300. I need to replace the read/write heads. Do you have any spare?

I have a Lacie Porsche drive (Firewire 400, I think) that I can’t power up any longer. I think it’s a drive fault rather than a cable issue. There’s not much of great importance on the drive, but there are the only copies of some photographs I would hate to lose. It would be great to recover them

My laptop came into contact with a magnet and will no longer work. I’ve taken it to Curry’s PC World to try and have the data recovered, but they’ve told me that an advanced data recovery is required because the drivers are damaged. I am able to turn the laptop on but all I can see is the ‘Aptio Setup Utility’ page.

Appears drive has failed. Slow writing / reading to begin with, then I fixed some bad sectors. The next day nothing could be read / written from it. Is still recognised by BIOS and OS but will sit at 100% usage and causes explorer.exe to hang. Encrypted with BitLocker.

Hard drive data recovery from Factory Reset

Factory reset commands aren’t just for mobile phones, they can also be completed on hard disk drives, and the result is that the files and data that was on the hard drive disappears so that new data can be loaded. Sometimes though, factory reset commands are done in error and a data recovery procedure becomes necessary to extract the old data from the hard drive. If this data extraction is possible of not depends on many factors, sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t. In the UK, data recovery companies like Data Clinic (https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/) are experts in recovering lost files and data.

“My daughters laptop stopped working so a friend of mine managed to reset it to factory settings. As a result all her videos and photos are gone. Is there any way you would be able to retrieve them, keeping the laptop working as it is now? If you need to know I am in the Headingley area of Leeds.”

“External hard drive Buffalo HD-HB250U2.
Worked last time used but now. Visible as drive but could not open ‘without formatting’
Contains all family and baby photos from clinic so I’m really rather keen to get it retrieved! I did a factory reset to try and get the data back but it doesn’t appear to have worked”

“Someone has wiped the hard drive on my laptop by executing a factory reset command, and I need to recover my pictures and work docs. I’ve tried using easeus but it hasn’t recovered everything.”

Data Recovery Bradford

Here are some of the data recovery enquiries from the areas of Bradford and Huddersfield we’ve received recently.

I just wanted to access my Toshiba external harddrive But it makes a weir ticking sound every 0.5seconds. I cant remember dropping the Harddrive..
Theres some Data on that drive which I really need.
How much would it cost me to get it recovered and how fast can that be done?
Im originally from Bradford and am coming to Bury in Manchester on Tuesday.

Seagate model SRD0NF1 2tb drive was dropped on the floor now powers and has a tick beep noise and no longer recognized by my laptop.

Seagate Mementus 5400.3 160GB
hard drive start spining and after few seconds makes repeated click noise

Synology NAS disk, clicking upon NAS boot up, recovery of files needed
WD Red NAS disk 3TB. Approx. 1.5tb of data to recover – video files only all stored in 1 folder.
Replacement drive to be supplied by myself – request for data transfer from damaged drive to new drive. I live in Huddersfield and work in Bradford, West Yorkshire.

I brought a new 320 gb external sonics hard drive but i dropped it and it started marking strange motor sticking sounds like it wont start, it shows about over 3GBs on EaseUs But wont find anything when i search on it. I had the same thing done to my Sandisk Usb stick the long black one it it fell hard while it was in the old laptop it shows no data i think i tried formating it but it show Mbs instead of GB’s lol would you be able to recover data on these and how much would it cost?

About 5 years ago one of my young children stood on my laptop bag and managed to damage the hard drive in my laptop. It does not boot at all so I took it out and chucked laptop but have kept the hard drive all these years. It has all my children’s baby pics and always meant to get around to trying to get it fixed so I could recover them. Hoping you guys will be able to advise in whether data is retrievable or not, thanks.

A 3.5 inch ~600GB drive which is reporting physical sector damage. Although bootable (XP OS), any attempt to recover sectors, e.g. chkdsk /r /f , is failing. This is also true of a sector-by-sector ‘cloning’ to a new secondary onboard hard drive.

The computer with the Kingstone disc was working fine, it had only a couple of years. One day the screen came out with the error 1962 saying “no operating system found. Press any key to repeat boot sequence.” However nothing happened apart from same error popping out. Tried to connect to check, however no data was found. Would you be able to help and how much would that cost?

1tb western digital elements hard drive – diagnosed by a local repair shop as having a mechanical error which is beyond their capabilities.

My external hard drive is not being picked up by my laptop. it is making a buzzing sound intermediately.

I have a Seagate back up portable drive (Model: SRD00F1) and I am able to view the device on my windows laptop but I am not able to see the deivce in the folders window. I had some IT folks look at this at work and tried on other laptop but have the same problem. It is suggested may be an issue with connection between the hardrive itself and the connection.

A few years ago when we purchased a new pc we moved a serial ATA drive from the old pc to the new just to keep the data and for use as a secondary drive. It is now unreadle and we need the data retoring to a new similar drive

Hard Drive Recovery Sierra Leone

My name is James and I am the founder of Laughter Africa, a charity for street children in Sierra Leone. The charity laptop died on Monday. My mum and dad’s IT guy has got me a new hard drive and the laptop is working again but he couldn’t extract the information off the old hard drive-he said there is a mechanical fault on the hard drive itself. He’s reccommended you. I was just wondering if you would be able to fix it and how much it may be? Do you offer charity discounts? Don’t worry if not, but just thought that I would ask. I am flying back to Sierra Leone in the next few weeks so was also wondering how long it would take? If you could get back to me asap then that would be great.

Western Digital 1TB External Hard Drive, WDT-D2C (B). According to the opinion of two technicians, the data of my hard disk would be recoverable in clean room, because they would act of a mecanic problem (head of reading or other breakdown). The hard drive runs noiselessly, but the computer does not detect it anymore.
The hard disk contains Word, Exel, Pdf, Tiff and Jpeg image files and numerous audio files.
Audio files do not matter, so their recovery is not necessary.
The 1TB hard drive is occupied by about 700 Gb whose audio files represent about 150 Gb.
I evaluate the files to recover at about 400 Gb.

I have an external HDD that I normally use for PS4 I own and the connection of the actual HDD itself is loose and almost pulls out completely when removing the cable, also sounds like there maybe rattling inside, problem is don’t see no way possible of getting inside it so not sure what to do on getting inside it.

I have a Samsung HD753LJ HDD which failed to spin up after I transfered it to a new PC. I have a replacement PCB for it and the dive now spins up but it wont read the disk, I understand that I have to swap the rom chip from the old PCB to the new one, is this somthing you can do?

With all these hard drive problems my recommendation is the Data Recovery Tips website at http://data-recovery-tips.co.uk/. As Sierra Leone is a long way from the UK, you can follow the information on the Data Recovery Tips web site and attempt to recover the data yourself, or if you’d like someone else to do it for you, complete the contact form and they’ll get in touch with you.

Hard Drive Man

Interesting things about hard disk drives

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