Wedding photos that vanished mid-shoot, a card the camera suddenly says needs formatting, a microSD snapped in half — we recover photos and video from memory cards for photographers and families across Sheffield.
Free diagnostic on every memory card job. Fixed quote before any work — and no fix, no fee.
Every memory card job starts by matching the symptoms to the fault — these ten cover almost everything that reaches the bench.
Reader, camera and PC all shrug — controller failure or corrupted firmware inside the card.
The file system index broke; the photos underneath are usually intact. Never press format.
Recoverable until new shots overwrite the space — stop using the card immediately.
In-camera formats are usually quick formats; most of the previous contents survive underneath.
MicroSDs snap in adapters and slots; monolith reconstruction reads the surviving internals directly.
A 64GB card showing 30MB means the controller has failed into a default mode — chip-level job.
A failing controller locks itself read-only; the lock slider on SD cards causes the same symptom.
Washing-machine survivors and cracked cards — cleaned, repaired and read at chip level.
Marked 512GB, really 16GB inside — files 'vanish' when writes wrap. We recover what was genuinely written.
Pulling the card mid-copy tears the file table; the files are re-carved from a sector image.
Memory cards pack NAND flash into a tiny space with minimal protection, so corruption and physical damage are common — especially on cards that have lived in cameras, dashcams and drones for years. We recover SD, SDHC, SDXC, microSD, CompactFlash, XQD and CFexpress cards, working from a forensic image of the card so nothing we do can make things worse.
A snapped microSD or a card that's electrically dead needs chip-level work: the memory is read directly and the raw data reassembled into your files. Monolith cards (where everything is one sealed chip) are the hardest jobs in flash recovery, and success depends on the damage — the free diagnostic will tell you exactly where you stand before you spend a penny.
Card recovery is flash-memory surgery, done with the same kit the batch of sticks and monoliths gets:
Reads NAND memory directly and rebuilds the controller's logic in software — the route in when a stick or card is dead.
Hot-air and infrared rework tools for lifting NAND chips from dead boards without cooking the data inside them.
Fine-pitch probe adapters and a pinout library for one-piece (monolith) cards and sticks where there's no chip to remove.
XOR, ECC and wear-levelling analysis that turns raw NAND dumps back into your actual files and folders.
Connector re-work and trace repair for snapped sticks and cracked boards — often the whole fix for physical damage.
Card and USB imaging goes through write-blocked readers, so the original media is never altered.
SD, SDHC, SDXC, microSD, CompactFlash, XQD and CFexpress — from dashcams and drones to professional camera bodies.
Most customers post or courier their device to us — it arrives next morning, and the free diagnostic starts the day it lands.
Sending a drive from a computer, laptop, MacBook, iMac or server? Please remove the internal hard drive or SSD and send us just the drive — we don't provide an internal drive-removal service. If the storage is soldered in (e.g. Apple Silicon), call us first on 0800 689 0668.
↓ Print the booking-in & shipping form (PDF)
Mark the package for the attention of Leeds Data Recovery and we'll call you as soon as we diagnose your media.
Not sure what to send? Call 0800 689 0668 first or use the free online diagnostic.
Free diagnostic, fixed quote, no fix no fee — start now or call the freephone.