Photos & Memories9 days

Eleven years of family photographs recovered from a clicking drive

Father of three · Edison, NJ

94%
Photos recovered
9 days
Recovery time
3
Copies now
Monthly
Restore tested
The challenge

What was going wrong

An external drive holding every family photograph since 2013 began clicking and stopped appearing on the computer. It was the only copy. Another shop had already attempted a recovery by repeatedly powering it on, which had made the mechanical damage measurably worse.

The solution

What we built

We stabilised the drive, imaged it sector by sector with bad-sector handling, and reconstructed the file system from the image. We recovered 94 percent of the photographs, then set up automatic backup so it cannot happen again.

How we approached it

Stage 1
Advised him immediately to stop powering the drive on
Stage 2
Free assessment establishing mechanical head damage
Stage 3
Stabilised the drive for a limited number of controlled read attempts
Stage 4
Imaged sector by sector, prioritising the photo directories first
Stage 5
Reconstructed the file system from the image rather than the drive
Stage 6
Provided a preview of recoverable files before any payment
Stage 7
Delivered everything on a new drive plus cloud backup
Stage 8
Configured automatic three-copy backup going forward

Outcome

  • 94 percent of photographs recovered, including all wedding and newborn folders
  • The 6 percent lost fell in a region already damaged by the earlier attempts
  • Automatic backup now runs to three destinations
  • A monthly restore test verifies it actually works
“The first place kept switching it on and telling me to hope. Stravix explained why that was making it worse, then got nearly everything back. My daughter’s first two years are on that drive.”
Raj M., Edison
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Response time
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Money lost
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A dissertation recovered the same afternoon a laptop died

Final-year university student · Newark, NJ

Challenge

Three weeks before submission, a full cup of tea went across a laptop keyboard. The machine powered off and would not restart. The dissertation represented eight mo…

None
Work lost
Same day
Back working
$2,499
Programme
Continuous backupLiquid damage repairLoan device
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Next step

Ready to turn your workflow into a scalable digital system?

Start with a complimentary discovery call. We will map the objective, outline an approach, give you an indicative budget range, and tell you honestly whether Stravix is the right partner for the work.

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