Data Recovery Case File · Trust, Practice & Honest Limits · Yes, With Three Caveats
Supplying Your Own Destination Drive
His enquiry was brief and included a practical offer that comes up often enough to deserve a proper answer. A 2TB portable drive that has stopped working: "I would like the data recovered from it, could you give me a rough price please? I would be able to supply a blank 2TB hard drive also." The answer is yes, and it is a sensible thing to offer — recovered data has to go somewhere, and providing that yourself removes a cost. But there are three things that decide whether it actually helps, and the first one catches almost everybody: a 2TB drive is very often not big enough to receive the contents of a 2TB drive.
| Media | 2TB portable external hard drive — no longer functioning; customer offering to supply blank destination media of matching capacity |
| Reported situation | Drive non-functional · recovery sought with indicative pricing · customer able to supply a blank 2TB drive as destination · email contact preferred |
| Fault class | To be established by assessment — destination media requirements independent of the fault |
| Equipment used | Destination sized above the source before imaging · supplied media tested before use · recovered data written and verified · original returned unaltered |
The decode: the three caveats, then the pricing question
Caveat one — size it larger than the source, not the same. The counter-intuitive one. A recovery frequently produces more data than the original drive appeared to hold, for several reasons: deleted files still physically present are recovered alongside live ones; earlier versions of documents surface; carving produces additional copies of files that also exist in the reconstructed filesystem; and where a structural rebuild is incomplete, output is delivered both as the rebuilt tree and as a carved set. A 2TB source therefore wants a destination comfortably larger — 4TB is a sensible choice, and the difference in price is small relative to a recovery.
Caveat two — it must be genuinely blank and genuinely reliable. The common version of this offer is an old drive the customer already owns, cleared out for the purpose. That is a poor idea: recovered data is, by definition, the only copy at that moment, and putting it onto a drive of unknown age and history is repeating the original mistake immediately. A new drive, or one with known light service, is worth the modest cost. It should also arrive empty, since anything on it will be moved or removed.
Caveat three — format and interface. Worth agreeing in advance rather than discovering afterwards: whether the recovered data needs to be readable on Windows, macOS or both, since that decides how the destination is prepared. A drive formatted for one platform and delivered to a user of the other is an avoidable annoyance.
The thing that follows from all of this: the destination is not a detail, because it becomes the only copy of everything recovered. It is worth treating with the same seriousness as the recovery. And once the data is back, it should not stay as a single copy on a single drive — the arrangement that produced this situation.
On the rough price: a figure cannot honestly be given from "stopped working", because that phrase spans a failed enclosure board costing very little and head damage costing a great deal more. What can be promised is the shape: a free assessment, then one fixed figure including VAT in writing before anything chargeable begins — a figure that does not move afterwards.
On the bench
The destination was sized above the source before imaging began, since recoveries routinely yield more than the original appeared to hold and running out of destination space mid-write is both wasteful and risky. Supplied media was tested before use rather than trusted, because recovered data becomes the only copy at the moment it is written. The recovered set was written and then verified against the image rather than assumed, prepared in the filesystem the customer actually needed, and the original drive returned unaltered.
The outcome
The destination sized and tested before use, the recovered data written and verified, and the original returned unaltered. Free assessment, one fixed written figure including VAT; where a drive has to be opened, 50% of parts and labour is payable upfront with the balance only on success — otherwise no recovery, no fee. The decode, for anyone offering to supply their own media: it is a sensible offer and it does reduce the cost, with three caveats — size it larger than the source rather than the same, because recoveries often yield more than the original held once deleted files and earlier versions surface; make sure it is new or lightly used rather than an old drive cleared out, since it becomes the only copy of everything recovered; and agree the format in advance so it is readable on the platform you actually use.
Providing your own drive for the recovered data
Good idea — buy one about twice the size of the failed drive. That surprises people, but recoveries regularly produce more data than the original appeared to hold: deleted files that are still physically present come back alongside live ones, earlier versions of documents surface, and where a filesystem rebuild is partial you get both the rebuilt folder tree and a carved set of the same material. A same-size destination frequently runs out. Second, don't use an old drive you've cleared out for the purpose — whatever is recovered becomes the only copy the moment it's written, and putting it on a drive of unknown history repeats the mistake that got you here. Third, say which platform you need it readable on before it's prepared. And once you have it back, get a second copy somewhere else promptly.
Buy it roughly double the size — call Glasgow Data Recovery on 0141 404 0294; destination sized above the source, media tested before use, recovered data written and verified.
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Our case files are drawn from genuine enquiries received by our laboratory over the past ten years, anonymised to protect client confidentiality. Each one describes the diagnostic and recovery procedure our engineers apply to that fault, using the equipment listed.