Your computer is at the heart of your business or your home. If you have ever suffered data loss, you know how much it can bring everything to a halt. You are not alone - we are here to help.
Your treasured family photos or your business ledger suddenly disappear or become inaccessible. These are stressful and upsetting situations to face.
Our data recovery service covers retrieval from inaccessible, formatted, damaged, failing or destroyed storage media, where the data cannot be accessed normally.
Our technicians have the knowledge, the experience and the software needed to recover data from a wide range of failed storage devices, including: hard drive, SSD, Fusion Drive, USB stick, CompactFlash card, SD card and others.
Our data recovery experts - all locally based, Apple and Microsoft certified technicians - are trained and qualified in a range of recovery methods and will use the approach best suited to your specific situation.
Book an appointmentRegular, continuous backup of your computer remains the best proactive strategy to ensure you will always be able to recover critical data.
Over time, every computer hard drive will eventually fail; its typical lifespan is only 3 to 7 years, and it is particularly sensitive to shocks, humidity and temperature variations.
While backup software now comes bundled with Mac and PC operating systems, our Apple-certified technicians can also recommend tailored third-party options for particularly sensitive data or requirements.
We advise you on best practices to avoid unrecoverable data loss.
Some data recovery companies offer free services, providing incomplete or inaccurate diagnostic results, often ending in a failed recovery.
At SOS Informatique, we are available seven days a week to inform and advise you. We carry out recovery work in our workshop in the Lyon area.
Stop using the drive concerned. A deleted file is not wiped: its location is simply marked as free, and it stays recoverable as long as nothing has been written over it. Every minute of use reduces your chances.
Above all, do not install recovery software on the drive concerned: the installation itself may overwrite what you are trying to save. And if the disk is clicking regularly, switch it off and do not switch it back on - each attempt makes a mechanical failure worse.
This is the most common confusion, and an expensive one. A computer that will not start usually has a system problem, not a disk problem: the files are intact and can be recovered by connecting the drive to another machine. What actually destroys data in these cases is the reinstall launched in the hope of “fixing” it. Never start one before putting your documents somewhere safe.
A diagnosis first, establishing what is genuinely recoverable and in what proportion. It is an honest answer, given before you commit to anything.
The drive is then connected read-only to a dedicated machine, never mounted for writing. We work from an image where possible, so as not to strain a fragile component further. Recovered files are saved to a third drive, never the original.
This has to be said plainly, because the opposite gets sold a lot. On an SSD, the TRIM function genuinely erases freed blocks a few minutes after a deletion: past that point, no technique will bring them back. Files encrypted by ransomware are not a recovery matter either - see ransomware protection.
Nobody can seriously guarantee a result before examining the drive. See also SSD data recovery and how to back up your data.
No, and nobody can seriously guarantee it before examining the drive. The diagnosis does tell you what is recoverable and in what proportion, before you commit to anything.
On a drive whose data really matters, it is risky: installing the software and writing the recovered files can overwrite exactly what you are looking for.
Switch it off immediately and do not switch it back on. A mechanical failure is under way, and every new power-up makes the damage worse, sometimes permanently.
From a few hours to several days depending on the volume and the state of the drive. The diagnosis gives you a timescale along with an estimate of what is recoverable.
Can't find your question? It may be in our full FAQ.
Entrust us with your device so we can try to recover your data.
Automatic assistant: it can make mistakes. Never share a password or a card number.
