Data Clinic - Data Recovery Services
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
Call Us Free: 0800 151 2207
  • Data Recovery Home
  • Data Recovery Services
    • Hard Drive Recovery
    • External & USB Drives
    • RAID / Server Recovery
    • NAS
    • SSD
      • Surface Pro Data Recovery
      • SanDisk SSD Data Recovery
      • Lenovo SSD Data Recovery
    • SD Cards
    • Mobile Phones & Tablets
      • >How The Process Works
      • Android Data Recovery
      • iPhone Data Recovery
      • Samsung Data Recovery
      • Sony Xperia Data Recovery
      • Nokia / Windows Data Recovery
      • Water Damaged Phones
      • Expert Phone Rebuilds and Repairs
    • CCTV & DVR
    • Macs
    • Windows Computers
    • Lost & Deleted Files
    • Advanced Forensic Data Recovery (ADR) Services
    • Password Recovery
    • Forensic Investigation
    • Encrypted Volumes
      • Bitlocker
      • Check Point Endpoint
    • Bitcoin, Crypto & NFT Wallet Recovery
    • Tape Recovery
    • Tape eDiscovery & Conversion
    • Advanced Recovery Service
    • Spare Parts & Donor Drives
    • Disk Manufacturers
      • Seagate Hard Drive Data Recovery
      • Western Digital Hard Drive Data Recovery
      • Toshiba Hard Drive Data Recovery
    • SCSI Data Recovery
    • SQL Recovery
    • How Do Hard Drives Fail ?
  • Locations
    • Belfast
    • Birmingham
    • Bristol
    • Edinburgh
    • Glasgow
    • Leeds
    • Leicester
    • Liverpool
    • London – Central
    • London – City
    • Manchester
    • Newcastle
    • Northampton
    • Sheffield
    • Southampton
  • Help & Advice
  • News
  • About Us / Contact

Help & Advice: Dropped WD Passport and Recovering SMS/WhatsApp Texts

/ / Data Clinic Ltd, News

This week we look at a problem on a dropped WD Passport Ultra hard drive, and examine the possibilities of recovering WhatsApp and SMS messages from two phones for use in court.

WD Passport Ultra Data Recovery

WD My Passport Ultra“My Western Digital Passport Ultra 500GB took a fall from around 40 cm height, and now the drive could not be detected on computers. When we plugged it in, we could still hear the spinning sound & without any clicking sound. The LED indicator was also lit, but not detected by computers whatsoever.

We’ve tried to bring this into several Data Recovery Service Points just to have a preliminary diagnostic, and most of them are around 80-90% confident that it is having a head problem/ failure.

If it’s really a head problem/ failure, I would like to ask 2 questions for Data Clinic:
– what would be the price range to recover the data?
– in many cases of head problems that you’ve ever worked on, what is the percentage of success that data is recoverable?”

Thanks for your question regarding the data recovery of your Western Digital Passport Ultra 500GB, even though you are not hearing the clicking sound that hard drives often make after they’ve had a fall, the chances are still very high that your hard drive has some sort of head fault. (The ‘heads’ are the parts of the drive that read and write data to the ‘platter’ where the data is stored. They are delicate and often damaged during a fall). This results in the drive not responding and the data on it no longer being accessible.

Data Clinic are normally able to recover data from situations such as this and to retrieve the data in this case it will be necessary for us to replace the damaged heads of the hard drive with compatible parts from a working donor drive. We have a large library of compatible spare parts already in stock, sometimes though we have to source the parts worldwide if we don’t have them in house. The cost of a spare part can vary considerably between anything from £70 up to £350. Also, the cost of spare parts is borne by the customer and is non refundable. There’s no guarantee that getting the spare part will equate to the data being recovered. Getting the spare part means we can swap out the broken part and replace it with a working one, but sometimes there is further damage to a hard drive – for example, a scratched platter or similar which prevents the recovery. Situations like this are rare, but they do exist. The cost for the standard Data Clinic data recovery process is between £350 and £500 ex VAT.

Retrieve WhatsApp and SMS Data

samsung galaxy ace 2“1) I have an iPhone 5s 16gb which I use everyday.
2) I may have deleted SMS and Whatsapp messages from 2-3yrs ago. I do not have any backups in the cloud to recover from.
3) I want to see what can be recovered from the phone, if any.
4) What is the likelihood that you will find anything? and what can I expect to pay?
5) I would also like to recover anything I can from an old Samsung Galaxy Ace 2, android phone.
6) This is for a court case so it’s important that I get a full response on cost and likelihood of recovery and possible next steps.”

Thanks for your question. Any recovery cases that are likely to be used in legal cases need to follow certain guidelines that allow the acquired evidence to be admissible in court (see our page at https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/computer-data-forensics/ for more details).

One problem I can see is the amount of time that has passed since the events took place. If the devices have been in use in the meantime there’s a high chance that the data you are looking to recover has been overwritten by subsequent use. But, if the phones have not been used much, or at all since the events the chances of recovery are very good. We have a number of techniques at our disposal to retrieve the information you seek – read more about what we can do on our iPhone data recovery and Android data recovery pages. The cost of this service to produce data admissible in court begins at £495.

iphone, recover data, samsung galaxy

Comments are closed.

For an Immediate Quote
Call FREEPHONE
0800 151 2207

or, Request a Callback

Data Clinic Reviews

Data Clinic Ltd - Manchester
Data Clinic Ltd - Manchester
4.5
Based on 214 reviews
See all reviewsWrite a review
Joseph Tobias
Joseph Tobias
09:21 22 Nov 23
Great service. Expensive but got the job done. Obviously it's terrifying sharing a 'nearly correct' crypto wallet seed with a company but the wallet was cracked and all funds were returned. Chris understands crypto, communicates well, and makes the process smooth and risk-free. Recommend.
Miklos Kemecsi
Miklos Kemecsi
21:34 14 Nov 23
I'm SO glad to have found this company, they literally saved my life! Chris Seeley and his colleagues at DataClinic were extremely helpful and understanding. They recovered my wallet within 1 day!Thanks again, what a brilliant service!Much recommended!!

LONDON
68 Lombard Street
EC3V 9LJ
Tel: 0207 111 0964

New London House
EC3R 7LP
Tel: 0207 111 0964

BELFAST
The Mount, Belfast BT6 8DD
Tel: 0282 024 7021

BIRMINGHAM
11 St Pauls Square, Birmingham B3 1RB
Tel: 0121 629 0436

BRISTOL
Castlemead, Bristol BS1 3AG
Tel: 0117 322 6585

EDINBURGH
St Andrews Square, Edinburgh EH2 2AF
Tel: 0131 242 0037

GLASGOW
Tay House, 300 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 4JR
Tel: 0141 301 1677

LEEDS
Building 3, City West Business Park, Gelderd Road, Leeds, LS12 6LN
Tel: 0113 254 9741

LEICESTER
3rd Floor, St. George's House, 6 St George's Way, Leicester LE1 1QZ
Tel: 0116 319 0115

LIVERPOOL
Horton House, Exchange Street East, Liverpool, L2 3PF
Tel: 0151 268 5255

MANCHESTER
The Pavilions, Bridge Hall Lane, Bury, BL9 7NX
Tel: 0161 761 0620

NEWCASTLE
116 Quayside, Newcastle, NE1 3DY
Tel: 0191 447 1227

NORTHAMPTON
400 Pavilion Drive, Northampton, NN4 7PA
Tel: 01604 529356

SHEFFIELD
The Balance, 2 Pinfold Street, Sheffield, S1 2GU
Tel: 0114 208 6027

SOUTHAMPTON
Basepoint, Andersons Road, Southampton SO14 5FE
Tel: 0114 208 6027


(c) 2020 Data Clinic Ltd - Data Recovery Services. Click to visit Data Clinic's DATA RECOVERY homepage.