Formatting a disk, factory-resetting a laptop or dropping a drive in a bin leaves the data intact and recoverable, by us or by anyone else. Sanitization is the documented process of making it genuinely unrecoverable, with a certificate against each serial number to prove it happened.
Every one of these leaves recoverable company or customer data outside your control unless the media is sanitized first.
A fleet of laptops or servers going out for trade-in, resale or lease return with their disks still populated.
Drives returned to the vendor take your data with them. Sanitize or destroy before the RMA leaves the building.
Devices returned from staff, particularly where the device held customer records or credentials.
Policies that require documented, evidenced disposal rather than an assurance that it was handled.
Bulk decommissioning where hundreds of devices need tracking individually rather than by pallet.
Media that has reached end of life and needs disposing of responsibly as well as securely.
Evaluation and quotation are free. You pay only after we show you a verified list of what was recovered, and only if you approve it. Nothing recovered means nothing invoiced.
Every case follows the same audited path. You get a case ID at step one and can ask for status at any point.
An engineer, not a call centre, works out what failed and whether the media should be powered on again at all.
We collect the device from your location, logged and sealed, or you send it in by courier.
A full diagnostic report: the fault, the recoverable scope, the turnaround time and a fixed price.
Sector-level imaging in a Class 100 environment, then reconstruction from the image. The original is never written to.
Online or on site, you check the recovered files before any invoice is raised.
Data is delivered on fresh encrypted media. Our working copies are sanitised to standard and the NDA stands permanently.
The method is chosen by media type and by what the device will do next. Flash media in particular cannot be reliably sanitized by overwriting alone.
The first hour decides how much is recoverable.
No. A format rewrites the file system tables and leaves the file data in place, which is precisely the situation our recovery lab exploits every day. A factory reset on a phone or laptop is better but still not a sanitization standard.
Not reliably. Wear levelling means an overwrite may not touch the physical blocks holding your data, and over-provisioned areas are not addressable at all. Flash media is handled by cryptographic erase or physical destruction.
A certificate of destruction listing every device by serial number, the method applied and the date, which is the form auditors expect. Witnessed or recorded destruction is available where your policy calls for it.
Yes, including collection, per-device logging and a consolidated report. Tell us the device count and types and we will scope the collection.
Free consultation, free pickup, a fixed quote before any work starts, and an invoice only if you get your data back.
Data Recovery Lab