Data Recovery in Dayton, OH

If a hard drive stopped being recognized, a laptop froze and went black, or you deleted something you needed, there’s a good chance the files can still be recovered. Double Helix Computers does in-house data recovery in Dayton, and bringing the device to our shop is the first step. We’ll tell you what’s possible.

When data recovery helps

• Failed or “crashed” hard drives. Hard drives are complex devices with many moving parts. Like the parts of a car, they wear out and can fail without warning, and drops and spills can damage the internals too. This is what people usually mean when they say a computer has “crashed.” Mechanical failure won’t necessarily stop us.
• Deleted files. Accidental deletion, system updates, viruses and program crashes can all put your files at risk. We can often “turn back time” and find files that seemed gone.
• Damaged or unreadable devices. Flash drives with broken connectors, cards that won’t read and drives that won’t mount can often still be recovered.

What we can recover from

• External hard drives
• Mac and PC hard drives
• Mac and PC SSDs
• Flash drives, including ones with broken USB connectors
• SD cards from digital cameras, smartphones and tablets

Successful recoveries have included photos, music, documents, log files, movies, albums and accounting software databases, along with many other file types. We use industry-standard, forensic-level recovery software.

Signs a drive is failing

Catching these early can make the difference between a quick copy-off and a recovery job:

• Clicking, grinding or repeated spinning-up sounds
• The computer freezes when opening certain files or folders
• Files that suddenly won’t open or have gone missing
• A drive that appears and disappears, or isn’t recognized at all
• Very slow reads, or a computer that hangs at startup

What to do when a drive fails

• Stop using the device. Every time a drive runs, there’s a chance of overwriting data or causing more damage.
• Don’t keep restarting it, and don’t try to “fix” it with random software.
• Don’t save anything new to the drive, and don’t reinstall the operating system on it.
• Bring it in and we’ll tell you what’s possible.

In-house recovery, with a partner for the toughest cases

We recover data in-house, which keeps your device in our local shop. For especially severe cases, we partner with DriveSavers. Either way, you deal with the people at our Dayton shop. We can’t promise every recovery, but we’ll be straight with you about the odds.

Prevent the next scare

Recovery is a rescue, not a plan. A good backup is the best protection, and our guide to backing up your data explains the options. If a drive is old and slow, or showing warning signs, our hard drive repair page covers drive problems on PCs, and an SSD upgrade can replace a tired drive.