Data Recovery Case File · Trust, Practice & Honest Limits · Silence Is Not Neutral
The Update That Did Not Arrive
This enquiry was not about a fault. It was a chase. A microSD card had been delivered the previous week, the work was urgent, a two-to-three-day turnaround had been quoted — and nothing had been heard since. "We have yet to hear if video data is recoverable, this is quite urgent. If somebody could please provide some information on the progress please." It belongs in this archive because it describes a failure that has nothing to do with equipment and everything to do with practice. When a quoted turnaround passes without contact, the customer is left to imagine the reason — and the reasons people imagine are always worse than the truth. Being chased for an update is a sign that a process has already gone wrong.
| Media | microSD card holding video material — received for assessment; turnaround quoted at two to three days; customer chasing after that period elapsed without contact |
| Reported situation | Card delivered and receipt understood · quoted turnaround passed · no interim communication received · work described as urgent · progress update requested by the customer |
| Fault class | Not applicable — communication and expectation management rather than a technical fault |
| Equipment used | Job logged and identified on receipt · assessment scheduled against the quoted turnaround · position communicated at the quoted point whether or not it had changed · findings and figure issued in writing |
The decode: what should have happened, and what to ask for
Why silence is the problem rather than the delay: delays are ordinary and mostly forgivable. A drive that needs a controlled first power-up gets scheduled rather than rushed; a card requiring chip-level work takes longer than one that reads; an assessment occasionally reveals something that changes the plan. None of that is unreasonable. What is unreasonable is a customer discovering the delay by noticing it. The obligation at a quoted turnaround is to make contact, not to have finished — and an update that says "still working, here is why, here is the revised expectation" costs nothing and removes the entire problem.
What people assume when nobody calls: and this is why it matters commercially as well as decently. Silence after a promised date reads as bad news being avoided. Customers conclude the data is gone and nobody wants to say so, or that their job has been forgotten, or that the firm is not what they hoped. On urgent work, they also start making decisions — reshooting, telling a client, missing a deadline — on the assumption of failure. A firm that has simply been busy has, by saying nothing, communicated something entirely different.
What a customer should expect, plainly: confirmation of receipt on the day, an assessment within the quoted window, and contact at that point regardless of the outcome. Then findings in writing — the fault, the realistic outcome, one fixed figure including VAT — before anything chargeable begins. If the work will overrun, that should arrive as a message rather than as a discovery.
What to ask for when chasing: three things, and asking for them is entirely reasonable. A current status in one sentence: received, assessed, in progress, or complete. A revised expectation with a date rather than "soon". And confirmation of the route and reference for future updates, so the next one arrives rather than being requested. On genuinely time-critical work it is also worth stating the deadline explicitly — a job that must be back by a particular day can often be sequenced accordingly, but only if someone knows.
The one thing that is not a bad sign: a longer-than-expected assessment. It frequently means care rather than trouble — a card being imaged patiently rather than hurried, or a difficult read being revisited on later passes. That is worth knowing, and it is exactly the sort of thing an update would have said.
On the bench
The job was logged and identified against the customer on receipt, so that its status was retrievable by anyone asked rather than held in one person's head. The assessment was scheduled against the quoted turnaround, and the position was communicated at that point whether or not it had changed — because the commitment was to contact at the quoted time rather than to be finished by it. Findings, the realistic outcome and one fixed figure went out in writing before anything chargeable began, with the deadline noted so the work could be sequenced against it.
The outcome
The status communicated at the quoted point, the findings issued in writing, and the deadline used to sequence the work. Free assessment, one fixed written figure including VAT; where a chip has to be removed, 50% of parts and labour is payable upfront with the balance only on success — otherwise no recovery, no fee. The decode, for anyone waiting: the obligation at a quoted turnaround is to make contact rather than to have finished, so silence at that point is a process failure regardless of the technical position; customers reading silence assume bad news is being avoided, and on urgent work they start acting on that assumption; when chasing, ask for a one-sentence status, a revised date rather than "soon", and the route for the next update; and state your deadline explicitly, because work can often be sequenced around a date that somebody knows about.
Waiting past a quoted turnaround
Chase, and ask for specifics rather than reassurance. Request three things: a one-sentence status — received, assessed, in progress or complete — a revised date rather than "soon", and confirmation of how and when the next update will reach you. If your work is time-critical, say the actual deadline out loud; jobs can often be sequenced around a date, but only if someone knows there is one. Don't read silence as bad news, tempting as that is — assessments legitimately overrun when a device needs a controlled first power-up, or when a difficult read is being revisited patiently rather than hurried, and that's care rather than trouble. But do expect to be told. A firm that only communicates when you chase it will do the same thing at the point where a decision needs making, which is the moment it matters most.
Ask for a status and a date — call Glasgow Data Recovery on 0141 404 0294; logged on receipt, contact made at the quoted point whether or not the position has changed, findings in writing.
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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.