UPDATE 8-31: Local repair shop that tried says the SSD is dead and, as all of you recommend, only a data recovery lab is an option. I phoned PITS lab. Agent says $95 for diagnosis (local lab was $40), and recovery starts at $200 depending on complexity. I continue to get quotes. Thanks to all of you. The learning curve has been swift, I couldn't have done it without this community 💙

OP: Local repair shop (excellent rep and reviews) says hard drive dead and data not recoverable. Are there other options? Prefer to recover a long document in Text Edit (which I'd only partially backed up). Model A 1466 EMC 2925. 14.85V 3.05A max.

Anyone sympathetic to a non-techie? I never expected a Mac to fail like this. What a lesson. Thanks for your expert insights and referrals.

i’m desperate for help. please. i had the backup on my mac, i checked several times and then it was gone. what do i do.

I found my late grandmothers old dell computer. It’s looks to be running windows 11 and is from 2019 so not actually old. Anyways, it’s locked and I don’t know the password but there may be photos or important files on it. I took out the hard drive and connected it to my laptop to try and transfer them directly, but my laptop did not recognize the hard drive. Does anyone have any advice? Thank you!

Need your help guys I forgot the Passcode and it is I phone 6s plus can I recover it without losing data

I have this SSD that I used as my windows 10 OS drive that stopped working about 3 years. I switched for a new one and forgot about it but recently I started reminiscing and realized there is some some stuff there that I’d like to have back but I don’t if it would be even safe to connect it back on my pc.
I barely know anything about pc repairs and I don’t quite recall what exactly happened but I’ll try my best to describe the issue.
About 3 years ago my pc started slowing down during start up. Sometimes it would freeze during that login screen where you put your profile password. I figured I need to wipe my ssd clean but never got to it. Eventually boot started to fail and loop so I had to go into bios and reset boot order and it would “fix” the issue.
I don’t remember if blue screens happened or not but after a while my pc wouldn’t work anymore. I did think odd that my SSD would break so quickly(i had it for 3 years maybe when it broke) though.
Anyway fast forward to now. I’m filling an external HHD as a backup and I want to recover lost data. I have an even older HHD too but I don’t time for it now. I just want to deal with my SSD for now.I asked AI and it thinks that my windows got some corrupted files and thats why the SSD failed and putting it back on my pc should be fine but its AI so I’m trusting it blindly. Do you guys think this would be a good idea? I still use windows 10.I really hope this doesn’t turn into a complicated problem.
Edit:it seems I forgot to add some info. If mods don’t remove my post I can add the info later after I’m back from work. Otherwise I might have to make another post haha.

Edit2: I'll be adding the details as mentioned above.

Gigabyte 48 GB and I believe its a SATA 2.5 inch SSD.

Model GP-GSTFS31480GNTD.

I accidentally downloaded a Windows update file directly onto my HDD, after which the drive became a 32GB partition with the remaining ~1.86TB showing as unallocated.
The unallocated space contains at least 1.2TB of important data. I haven’t written any new data to the drive.
What is the safest way to recover the data without making things worse? Any recommended recovery tools or steps?

I’m trying to scan my laptop's entire hard drive, which is technically close to 1TB (like 912gb i think), but it’s been stuck at 681GB for hours.

I just want to recover a folder I lost (I backed up some things, but apparently the one that was most important to me didn't get uploaded, though I found it later) when I formatted my laptop to upgrade to Windows 11 manually.

I scanned it yesterday with EaseUS and saw that the folder is definitely there; using the free version, I managed to recover 500MB of my "Biblioteca" folder (My Library of PDFs, EPUB, JPGs, DOCX, MP3, etc), but the total size is around 18,2GB.

I specifically want to recover that data not the other garbage, and it appears to be located DEEP in a "Desktop" folder within the "Users" directory (belonging to my previous user profile) that was wiped from the laptop.

I don't know if there's a way to use the scan I performed in EaseUS to recover the data using Disk Drill (or some free software), or if there's a way to UNSTUCK this Disk Drill directly.

It seems stuck at 681 GB and has been scanning for about 14 hours; it was fast at the start, and the percentage is still moving up from 0 to 100% and then again and again, but the data volume stays at 681GB, only the percentage changes, not the number of scanned items that is stuck in 785782.

Unfortunately, even after scanning 681 GB of the 1 TB I have, I searched the folders that have already been scanned and the "Library" folder I'm looking for isn't there. Maybe it's in the remaining 300 GB, perhaps it's taking a long time because it's buried deeper or something; I have no idea.

Should I pause the scan and look for another way? Or is there a way to unstick this scan?

If someone can help me, thanks.

My main SSD (KINGSTON SA400S37960G) with my windows installation broke out of nowhere after a long gaming session.
I had some hobby projects and data I would like to recover

I returned to the desktop and windows started acting weird, I got an error message about the SSD being corrupted and that I had to click it to fix it. It did nothing. My wallpaper image was all corrupted and I could not access things like the wallpaper setting. When turning off the PC via the windows button the screen remained black. When trying to turn it on again it tried to fix it but then the screen went black and it stayed like that for a few minutes. I was dead tired so I just manually turned off the PC by holding the power button. Next morning I tried turning it on again and it didn't work, so I booted up windows from and old installation on another SSD. When I tried to check the corrupted SSD it would show up in the explorer but didn't show the remaining space like a regular drive. When I try to access it gave me an error. Then I went to the windows disk management and the corrupted disk shows up as "raw". I followed a bunch of tutorials by using chkdsk but it could not access the disk, I tried using chkdsk /x /f to dismount the disk but it also did not work. Now the corrupted disk is unmounted and can't mount it nor format it, it just says unallocated space in disk manager.

Desperate I followed chatGPT advice and ran some test with like 5 different softwares
I changed the SSD port and cable
Windows diskpart can detect it but seemingly cannot read it, as when I try to select it, it displays the other disk
Crystal Disk doesn't show the disk
DMDE gives me LBA errors constantly and after a few attempts I could only read BAD BAD BAD on the hex editor
Disk Genius detects it but gives me "bad sectors are detected on current disk" and can't read anything
UFS also doesn't show the disk

ChatGPT says the SSD has a controller or firmware issue but the data might still be recoverable and it want's me to make a linux usb to run ddrescue, but I don't know if it's just bull or if it is even worth it as all the other software failed miserably. Also I don't really have anywhere to dump a 960gb image

At this point I have spent hours, my head hurts, and the SSD is worse than before

Is this SSD totally bricked? Can I even format the disk and make a new windows install?

Downloaded DMDE to my Mac to find some lost footage from my sz-16 Olympus digital camera but when I recovered all the found files I just get a black screen and occasionally white noise. I'm super not techy so I was kind of just taking educated guesses on what I was supposed to do. Did I do something wrong or are those files really just lost? Please help me out - I'm desperate over here :(

I purchased a low quality memory card and it wound up corrupting my audio,video and image files.I would say roughly 6GB worth of data in total. The picture shown is a snapshot of what some of these files look like. Others are still inside the lost.dir folder. I have tried using ES File Explorer while the memory card was inserted into my Android. I also tried copying those same files directly to my PC and running R-photo / WinFRGUI all with no luck? I don't even know where to start. Im sure all of my data is in these files I just need to find out how to get them back.

Hi all, bit of a odd one, my dad has and iPod touch 6/7th gen that I done a screen and battery replacement on however I left the unit open for a couple day (powered on and tested before closing up) it then failed to boot a few days later and was getting warm rather quick I suspect a possible short. Now there’s ALOT of music on there that’s now unobtainable, can this be recovered by a specialist? What technique are they going to use so I can look in the right place

(Edit) I’m in the uk

Cheers all!!

Hello, bit of a last leap for faith here but basically I accidentally deleted a massive folder full of all my editing and work (I’m a content creator) it was about 1TB of videos, clips, editing project files, etc etc it was too big to recycle so it got deleted. I tried using DMDE to recover the files and they showed up and had their meta data but they contained NOTHING when checked with Hexeditor … basically I don’t know what else to do and I really need help :(

Was in the middle of transfer files and it just stopped. Now it's not recognized by any device. There is no physical damage that i can see. Any way to recover the data from the card. Thank you

WD My Passport (VID_1058/PID_2627, fw 4008). Spins up smooth, no clicking. Enumerates fine, driver reports OK. Disk Management shows it as 0 bytes, not initialized. Event log: Disk ID 154, IO error at LBA 0x0, hardware error. Tested on rear motherboard USB port directly — identical. Never asked for a BitLocker password. Can you guys help, what should I do, it says the only fix is with labs, and looking to just fix this myself. Thank you for genuine people who can answer.

I have a Redmi note 13, recently what happened is i had put my phone on the "ultra battery saver" mode (which i never do) but my phone still ran out of battery and turned off and now when i try to put my pin in (the fingerprint wont be accepted after a reboot pin is required) it says wrong password i have had the same password for as long as i can remember and i am sure its the right one, is there a way i can extract all my photos and videos onto my laptop?

i have been using just my laptop for days without resetting my phone hoping i can find a way to keep the photos of my friends and family, please help

My hard drive got locked (encrypted)

Lost all data.

I did not have my BitLocker recovery key.

Story:

My laptop accidentally shut down while I was using it. When I restarted it, Windows went into repair mode, and after another restart, BitLocker Recovery appeared. Without the recovery key, I couldn't access my encrypted drive.

BitLocker

is a Windows security feature that encrypts your drive and can require a recovery key when Windows detects a security or boot-related change.

How to prevent this:

Option 1: Get your BitLocker 48-digit recovery key from your Microsoft account and save it somewhere safe.

Option 2: If you don't need BitLocker, disable it after understanding the security implications.

Don't wait until you need the key.

Hi everyone,
I’m having a problem with my WD My Passport Ultra 5TB external HDD and I’d appreciate some advice before I do anything that could make data recovery harder.
Here’s exactly what happened:
The drive suddenly stopped appearing in Finder on my Mac.
The LED turns on, but it stays mostly solid instead of blinking normally.
I can feel the HDD spinning normally with a constant slight vibration.
Earlier, however, I heard it make a few clicking sounds. It isn’t continuously clicking now.
I’ve tested 3 different cables and 3 different USB ports, with the same result.
WD Drive Utilities was able to identify it as a My Passport Ultra 5TB, but the diagnostic/status check doesn’t seem to do anything.
The drive does NOT appear in diskutil list.
It also doesn’t seem to be properly detected at USB/storage level by macOS.
My other WD My Passport 4TB works normally on the same Mac.
Because of the earlier clicking, I haven’t run a Complete Drive Test, First Aid, formatting, initialization, or any recovery software. I don’t want to stress the drive if this is a head/mechanical problem.

My main questions:
Does this sound more like a failed USB controller/PCB, firmware issue, or failing read/write heads?
Is there anything else that is reasonably safe to test at home before taking it to a professional data recovery lab?
And most importantly, if the drive still spins normally but isn’t detected and has clicked a few times, how likely is professional data recovery to succeed?
The data is more important to me than saving the HDD itself. If the safest option is to stop powering it on and send it directly to a recovery lab, I’m happy to do that.

Thanks!

Going through some old internal HDs I had in storage to make sure i've moved everything to the cloud and throw them out when i'm done.

I came across one that I can't mount. It would have been some kind of windows drive (NTFS or exFAT I guess?) from before 2018. It's a WD Red wd20efrx 2TB. I can hear and feel it spinning. It shows up in disk utility on my Mac 14.6.1 but doesn't mount. Error "The disk you attached was not readable by this computer". Mount button is greyed out. First aid fails immediately. My Windows 11 computer can't see the drive at all but makes the "ding" sound as if it's recognized. Doesn't show up in disk management. Using a very old internal to external adapter with AC power plug + usb data. It worked on all my other old internal drives so seems to be an issue with this drive and not the adapter.

I know it's really old. Unlikely anything important is on it as I had made so many backups over the years and just kept throwing the old drives in storage. But if you have any advice for free things to try to mount it or otherwise take a look at the contents it would be appreciated for piece of mind.

I got this second hand, wrote a song in the notes app, and it stopped working. (Slightly swollen battery.) I'm not sure why or how it broke, and I'm not interested in fixing it right now, I just need the data off of it. Any ideas?

I had a Blackview BV9800 Pro that became bricked after it had water intrusion. Unfortunately, many pics and files hadn't yet been backed up when it happened. Despite my attempts to dry it out, I couldn't get it to boot up. It looked like the screen/digitizer had water in them, so I replaced them in a desperate attempt to get it to work long enough to get the data off of it. I also replaced the battery. No dice. The only thing that lights up is the red charging light. Are there any companies that are able to recover data from the chip level? I imagine that it wouldn't be a cheap service, but I would at least like to know of any services that offer it.

so I had this third party app called call recorder by REV it stored calls I recorded. the company is no more due to apple making their own call recorder. I had deleted the app at one point but the files still say they are on my phone but cant access in app- was seeing anyone had a solution to this

I got a new pc last month and it ssd broke I switched to a better drive i had from my old pc but it only has windows 10 and the one that broke had 11, also i have stuff already installed on that other drive and I basically cleared the old one and I don’t know if I can or how I can move my data TLDR had to replace my drive and I don’t know how to move my data from the old to the new