Pittsburgh, PA · Mail-in & Local Data Recovery
Hard drives and memory cards,
recovered.
I'm Josh. I recover files from hard drives and SSDs, and photos and video from memory cards and cameras, at a one-person lab in Pittsburgh. Mail it in or drop it off. I'll tell you exactly what I'm doing and what I found.
The evaluation is free. I'll show you what's recoverable before you pay anything. If what you're looking for isn't there, you owe nothing.
What I do
Drives
Hard Drive & SSD Recovery
Deleted files, corrupted drives, clicking hard drives, external drives that stopped responding. Logical recovery and light physical cases.
Problems: clicking noise, not detected, deleted files, won't mount, corrupted partition
Devices: external drives, laptop and desktop drives, SSDs, USB flash drives
Starting at: $150
Cards & Cameras
Memory Card & Camera Recovery
Deleted photos, formatted cards, cards that ask to be formatted, video that won't play. A card mails in a padded envelope. Stop using it first.
Problems: deleted, formatted, asks to be formatted, not recognized, corrupted video
Cards: SD, microSD, CF, CFexpress, XQD, from cameras, action cameras and drones
Starting at: $100 flat
Also at the lab: VHS and tape digitization and floppy disk recovery.
How it works
01
Describe the problem
Fill out the intake form: what happened, what device, how urgent. Takes two minutes. I'll respond within 24 hours with questions or a preliminary assessment.
02
Ship or drop off
Pittsburgh locals can drop off in person. A memory card mails in a padded envelope. For a drive, you don't need to remove it; shipping the whole laptop is fine. See the <a href="/shipping/" class="text-amber hover:underline">shipping guide</a>.
03
Free evaluation & report
I evaluate the device at no charge and send you a report of what's recoverable: file count, file types and date range. A firm, flat quote comes with it.
04
Delivery & payment
If you approve the quote, I finish the recovery. You pay on delivery. Recovered data is delivered by Dropbox link, and your original device comes back to you. Return shipping is on me unless you ask for rush return.
In scope
What I can do
- ✓ Logical failures: deleted files, formatted drives, corrupted file systems
- ✓ Memory cards: deleted photos and video, formatted cards, damaged file systems, video that won't play
- ✓ Mechanically degraded drives: bad sectors, weak motor, struggling to spin
- ✓ PCB and USB controller failures on external drives
- ✓ Water-damaged drives (some cases, depending on platter condition)
- ✓ VHS, VHS-C, Hi-8, and 8mm tape digitization
- ✓ RAID array recovery (0, 1, 5; discussed case by case)
Out of scope
Where I refer out
- — Cleanroom head swaps and platter transplants. That work requires a Class 100 environment I don't operate.
- — Firmware-level failures on specific drive families (some Seagate and WD models)
- — Fire-damaged drives with warped or contaminated platters
- — Encrypted drives where the key is unknown
- — Some memory cards that no reader or camera can detect at all. I can do some of these; the rest I refer out.
- — Internal storage on action cameras and drones, which is often unrecoverable once TRIM has run
If your situation falls into this category, I'll tell you and point you toward a reputable cleanroom lab. DriveSavers and Gillware handle that work well. A clear referral is more useful to you than a recovery attempt that was never going to succeed.
Pricing
Flat quotes. No hourly rates. No surprises.
Memory card recovery is $100 flat for a deleted or formatted card that still reads, and $150 to $250 for complex cases. Hard drive and SSD recovery starts at $150 for logical cases and goes up to $500 for complex physical failures. VHS digitization is $25–$45 per tape. Every quote is firm and given before you owe anything.
No data, no charge.
The evaluation is free. I'll show you what's recoverable before you pay anything. If what you're looking for isn't there, you owe nothing.
About
Built around a specific kind of problem.
I got into data recovery the same way I get into most things: curiosity. It started with VHS tapes, figuring out how they worked, why they degraded, what it actually took to pull a signal off aging magnetic oxide. That rabbit hole led pretty naturally into hard drives, and from there into just how fragile the things we store our memories on really are.
I focus on logical and degraded-drive recovery because that's where I can genuinely help. Cases that need a cleanroom get referred to the right lab, not attempted anyway.
More about the lab →From the bench.
All posts →Data Recovery
Floppy Disk Data Recovery: What Actually Works
USB floppy drives give up on degraded disks. Flux-level imaging with a Greaseweazle captures the raw magnetic signal and recovers files from disks that seem dead. How it works and when it helps.
Data Recovery
Recovering Files from a Deceased Relative's Floppy Disks
After a parent or grandparent passes, their old floppy disks may contain documents, photos, and letters that exist nowhere else. What's likely on them and how to get it back.
Data Recovery
Why Your Old Floppy Disk Looks Blank (It Probably Isn't)
A floppy disk that Windows says is blank or unformatted is usually formatted for a different system — Mac, Amiga, Atari, or an older DOS version. The data is there. The OS just can't see it.
Ready to get started?
Describe what happened.
I'll tell you what I can do, and what I can't. No charge to find out.