Cause of loss · files that have vanished
Stop using the machine, then tell us which drive the file was on — that second answer decides most of it. On a hard disk, a delete crosses the name off the index and returns the clusters to the free list; the bytes written inside them stay put until another file needs the room, which can be weeks. An SSD will not wait. TRIM tells the controller to clear those cells and it does so unprompted, usually before you have worked out what to do. Both are dealt with further down. The look is free here in Reading, and the figure is £250 + VAT for a card or a stick, £300 + VAT for a drive.
An engineer answers, and looking is free
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| What you notice | What is likely wrong | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| Vanished, and nothing in the Recycle Bin either | It never reached the bin: Shift+Delete, a memory card, a stick, or a file over the size limit | Put nothing else on it |
| Too big for the bin to hold | Windows took it out immediately — the bin never had it | The contents are normally still there |
| Missing off a camera card or a USB stick | There is nowhere on a card or a stick to keep it, so the entry goes at once | Take it out and go no further with it |
| The lot went after a sync | OneDrive or the like has carried across a deletion made on another machine | Check that service's own online bin first |
| A folder you use daily, suddenly empty | Someone deleted it, a sync went wrong, or you are in a second profile | Switch it off before you start hunting |
| It is an SSD, and the file has gone | The controller has had the TRIM signal, and empties those blocks within seconds | Power it down now |
A case number goes on your device the day it reaches us, and an engineer then finds the real fault — free, and before anything else happens. You are told plainly what will come back and what will not, with one fixed figure in writing beside it. Nothing chargeable starts until you have read that and said yes.
A computer left switched on writes to its own disk all day without asking anyone — thumbnail caches, browser files, an update unpacking itself in the background. Those writes land wherever space is free, and the space your file was using now counts as free. That is why the disk comes out and gets imaged.
With the index intact, names, dates and the folder tree come back alongside the contents. Without it, each file is carved out of the image on the signature its format begins with.
A number on a report is not evidence of anything. What happens here instead is that the recovered files get opened and looked at, with whatever you flagged as important checked separately.
You see the file list first, then decide. Nothing is invoiced until you have said yes, and on most jobs there is no fee at all if the data does not come back. What we pull off goes onto media bought in for your job, and the postage home is ours. The case stays open on the bench until you tell us the files open on your own machine.
One keystroke, two completely different clocks. Bytes on a hard disk stay put, often for years, and go only when some later file claims the room they occupy. Press the same keys over an SSD — a WD Blue, a BarraCuda — and TRIM can have those cells emptied within minutes. Identical action, opposite outcome. It is why the opening question here concerns the drive and not the file at all, and why a free diagnosis can tell you on day one where you stand.
A year of bookkeeping left the office machine of a Woodley trade counter in one keystroke, bin and all. Imaging was done the day it landed; the index was rebuilt from the copy rather than the original, and the folder came back whole, filenames and dates with it.
Which medium it is decides the answer; the file itself has little to do with it. A hard disk keeps the contents in the same sectors until some other file needs the room, and jobs of that sort mostly end well. Where TRIM is running on an SSD, the drive empties those blocks on its own account, often before you have even shut the machine down.
On a hard disk, no. All Shift+Delete does is skip the bin. The clusters are freed either way, and the bytes stay where they were written. A recycle bin was always a convenience; it was never a safeguard.
No. Answer that prompt on a stick or a camera card and Windows acts immediately, holding nothing in reserve. The data itself normally stays down in the flash, and it is the flash our tools read — the chips themselves, not the directory.
Because the drive tidies up after itself. TRIM is the file system saying which blocks are finished with, and the drive empties them ahead of time instead of waiting for the next write. Nothing about it shows on screen. It is why the window is minutes on an SSD and can be weeks on a hard disk.
You pay nothing for the look. What comes back is a list — the files that opened, the ones that did not, and one fixed figure to finish the job. Leave it switched off until you have that in writing.