A couple of disks which stopped working at the same time, a resync which went the wrong way, an enclosure that died with two functional disks trapped inside: all these are recoverable states. Each disk is captured separately and your files are restored from whichever copy is stronger.
No RAID quote is guesswork. First a free diagnosis, then one written quotation, from £500 + VAT depending on the number of members, and on logical rebuilds you only pay if we recover your data.
Mirrors make only one commitment: to withstand one dead disk. The list below walks straight past that commitment, and everything on it ends up here.
Mirror pairs come from the same batch, power on at the same time and experience the same load. Whatever destroyed the first disk is usually not far behind on the second, often within days.
In two-bay NAS boxes and mirrored external devices, the bridge circuitry or controller normally dies first, leaving two good disks shut inside a dead case until each one is read directly.
Change the wrong drive (or let the unit decide which) and the blank or stale drive is copied directly onto the good one. The mirror faithfully erases the data it was built to protect.
A pair that ran degraded at different times ends up holding two different truths. When you merge these two disks carelessly, they destroy each other. If you image each disk individually, they both contribute.
Any type of deletion, corruption, faulty update or ransomware attack damages both sides of a mirrored set, because mirroring is essentially just writing everything twice. Therefore the damage occurs at exactly the same time on both disks.
A faulty NAS firmware update or operating system fault could render your device unusable even if there are no problems with either disk in the mirror. To restore access, you would need to create images of both disks and then raise the volume from those images on other hardware.
From the first minute onwards both disks are treated as two separate cases. Each half is captured on a hardware imager (head-swap bench work comes first where one has physically failed) and then both captures are weighed against each other: which carries more of your data, and which holds the more recent state of it. The stronger image becomes the foundation, the weaker one donates all it can to fill holes in it, and the original pair will never see another write.
A RAID 1 system is designed to survive exactly one event: the loss of a single disk, while the volume continues to operate normally. Everything else, such as a user deleting files, a poisoned update or ransomware, damages both disks at the same moment, and a dead enclosure takes both drives offline together. A broken mirror is therefore a proper recovery job. It also reminds us of an old principle: a backup that counts should exist on different media and in a different location.
Most of the pairs we receive come out of Synology, QNAP and Netgear two-bay units and small office servers, posted in from York, Ripon, Pocklington and Easingwold. Once you have your quote (0800 689 0668 or the free online diagnostic), send both disks together to our Leeds lab, each labelled with its bay number. You can drop them off at the Leeds lab's reception, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment necessary, or send them by tracked post to arrive the next working day. More detailed information can be found under RAID recovery and NAS recovery, and pricing can be viewed on our data recovery cost page.
We create an image of both halves of the pair, rebuild using the stronger member, and give you one written figure after a free diagnosis.
Get a quote first, by calling us on 0800 689 0668 or using our free online diagnostic tool. After receiving your quote, tracked and insured post is how nearly every job reaches us: it is the fastest and safest way to get your drive to our lab in Leeds. There's no collection service, so the parcel is yours to send, or you can hand it in at the Leeds lab's reception.
Is the hard drive or SSD still inside a machine, such as a laptop, MacBook, iMac, CCTV/DVR system or server? Please remove the hard drive or SSD from the machine first and then post just the bare drive by itself; we do not provide a service for removing drives from devices. For a server or RAID, send every disk, each clearly marked with its bay. For a NAS, send its disks labelled by bay if you can remove them, otherwise send the NAS itself. We cannot work on storage soldered to the motherboard (e.g. Apple Silicon Macs, T2 Macs and certain slim laptops): if it doesn't come out, it can't come in. If you are unsure whether your storage is removable, call us before sending.
↓ Print the booking-in & shipping form (PDF)
Once you have your quote, send your package addressed to Leeds Data Recovery (about a 40 minute drive from York on the A64 & A1(M) or next working day if you want to send it using trackable post). We will contact you as soon as we have taken delivery of your package and put it in line to be worked upon.
Can't figure out what to pack? Ring 0800 689 0668 first, or try our free online diagnostic tool.