What decides the result
A drive that looks completely dead can still hold all of its data, while one that still works can have damaged files. The make or the symptom alone does not tell you which. The diagnosis does.
Data is gone for good when:
- new files have been saved over it;
- the surface of a hard drive’s disk has been scraped away by a failed head;
- an SSD has already cleared the deleted files, which it does automatically (a feature called TRIM);
- the encryption key or the phone’s passcode is lost.
What helps now
Stop using the device. Each restart, repair program or newly saved file can reduce what is left to recover.
Before the diagnosis, name the folders, file types or documents you need most. If a complete recovery is unlikely, we tell you whether those particular files can still come back.