A pair that gave out within days of each other. A resync that copied the wrong way round. An enclosure that died around two perfectly good disks. All three are recoverable positions. The halves are imaged apart, weighed against each other, and your files come off whichever one is the stronger.
Nothing about a RAID quote is guessed. Free diagnostic, then one written number — £500 + VAT upward on member count, and logical rebuilds keep no fix, no fee.
A mirror guarantees one thing and nothing beyond it: the volume survives one dead disk. Every case below walks straight past that guarantee, which is why they end up here.
Both halves came from the same batch, were switched on the same morning, and have done identical work ever since. Whatever took the first one is usually not far behind the second, and not far can mean days.
The controller or bridge board in a two-bay NAS or a mirrored external case usually goes first. Two perfectly serviceable disks then sit locked in a dead shell, waiting to be read out singly.
Fit the wrong member, or leave the unit to choose, and the blank or outdated disk is written straight across the good one. The mirror performs faultlessly and destroys precisely what it was bought to protect.
A pair that spent different periods running degraded ends up holding different histories. Merged carelessly they contaminate each other. Imaged apart, each supplies what only it still carries.
Deletion, corruption, a bad patch, ransomware. Mirroring copies writes the instant they occur, so all of it reaches both halves together and neither escapes.
A failed NAS firmware update, or an operating system that corrupts itself, leaves a dead box wrapped round two good disks. The way in is to image each and raise the volume on other hardware.
The pair is separated the moment it arrives. Each disk is imaged on lab hardware, any physically failed half visiting the clean bench first, and the two images are then set against each other. Which one holds more of your data, and which one holds the later version. The stronger becomes the base, the other fills what is missing, and neither disk is written to again at any stage.
A mirror answers one question only. What happens the day a drive dies with the volume still running. Nothing else is covered at all. A deletion, or an update gone bad, reaches both halves at the very same instant. Ransomware works through both in one pass, and a dead enclosure removes the pair from service together. So a failed mirror is a genuine recovery job, and the old advice still holds good. The backup that saves you lives on separate media, in another building.
Most pairs on this bench arrived from a two-bay Netgear, QNAP or Synology box, or from a small office server, sent in by customers in Aberdeen, Westhill, Banchory, Ellon and Fraserburgh. Put both disks in the same parcel to the Edinburgh lab, a straight run down the A90 or overnight by tracked post. The wider picture sits on RAID recovery and NAS recovery, and the money sits on the data recovery cost page.
Both halves imaged, the stronger rebuilt. Free diagnosis, then a number in writing.
Nearly everything on this bench came by tracked, insured post. It is the safest way to shift a failing drive, and a parcel handed in at a North-East post office is usually here the next working day.
Still bolted into a laptop, desktop, MacBook, iMac, server or CCTV / DVR box? Get the hard drive or SSD out first. The bare drive travels on its own. Stripping machines down is not a job this lab takes on. Flash soldered to a motherboard, as on Apple Silicon Macs and a couple of very thin laptops, is our one flat no: if it will not unbolt, it cannot be worked on.
↓ Print the shipping & booking-in form (PDF)
Address it for the attention of Edinburgh Data Recovery. From Aberdeen that is roughly 130 miles and two and a half hours down the A90, or next working day by tracked post if you would rather not make the run. You get a call the moment it is booked onto the bench.
Not sure what belongs in the box? Ring 0800 689 0668 before you tape it shut, or work through the free online diagnostic.