(916) 627-1818 Get a Repair Quote
  • Data Recovery
  • Elk Grove, CA
  • Mail-in available

Data Recovery, Elk Grove

Data recovery in Elk Grove.

Bring in or mail us the drive, the card, the laptop or the phone. We work out whether the problem sits in the file system, the electronics or the mechanics, and we tell you what can be attempted before you commit to anything.

Call (916) 627-1818 Mail it in
Technician soldering a laptop logic board under a microscope at the iGeek bench
  • Elk Grove, CA 8145 Elk Grove Blvd, Suite 12, Elk Grove, CA 95758
  • Mon-Fri 10-5, Sat 10-3 Shop hours
  • Work done in-house By our own technicians at our Elk Grove shop
  • (916) 627-1818 Call or mail it in
“iGeek was able to retrieve the data out of this very old hard drive and do it in-house.”
Google review

What Went Wrong

Storage fails in a few recognizable ways.

A symptom rarely names the cause on its own, but it does tell us where to start looking. If nothing below matches what your device is doing, describe it on the phone and we will point you at the sensible next step.

Data recovery is part of our computer repair service in Elk Grove.

  1. External drive doesn't appear

    You plug it in and the computer acts as though nothing happened. The bridge board in the enclosure, the cable, or the partition table is often at fault rather than the disk itself.

  2. Files deleted by mistake

    A recycle bin emptied in a hurry, a format aimed at the wrong disk, a folder that is simply gone. The contents usually sit where they were until something writes over them, so stop using the drive.

  3. Clicking or grinding

    Noise from a mechanical drive means the heads or the motor are involved, which is a physical fault. We identify it and tell you plainly what that means for the data.

  4. Liquid got into it

    A spill or a drop in water attacks the board, but storage often survives the device it lived in. We check whether the chips or the platters are intact before anything is written off.

  5. It won't boot

    Blue screens, kernel panics, a machine that hangs at the logo. A boot failure is usually the operating system or the file system, and the files underneath are frequently untouched.

  6. SSD just stopped

    Flash storage tends to go without the warning noises a hard drive gives you. We see M.2 NVMe, SATA SSDs, and the storage soldered onto the board in Apple machines.

  7. Phone won't power up

    After a drop, a soaking or a charging fault, the storage inside is often still readable even when the phone is not usable. Photos, messages and contacts are what people come in for.

  8. USB stick asks to be formatted

    That prompt means the system cannot read the file system, not that the contents are gone. Say no, unplug it, and let someone look before anything gets written.

  9. Camera or phone card unreadable

    Photos and video that stopped showing up on an SD or microSD card. A card that is electrically intact is usually worth a look.

  10. RAID set degraded

    Several disks mean several failure paths, and the array layout matters as much as the members do. We look at RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 sets, from one dropped disk to a stack that will not assemble.

  11. Drive is on its way out

    Long boots, files that error on open, SMART reporting reallocated sectors. A drive that still answers is the best case there is, because it can be imaged while it lasts.

  12. Computer is dead, files are inside

    No power, no display, nothing on screen, but the storage is a separate component. We can pull it, read it, and put the contents somewhere you can use them.

Storage We Handle

The media that lands on our bench.

Spinning disks, flash, cards, arrays, and the storage sealed inside a phone or a laptop. Each type fails in its own way, so the approach changes, but the opening move does not: make a copy before anything else touches it.

  • Hard drives

    Laptop and desktop mechanisms in 2.5" and 3.5", including older SATA and IDE stock.

  • SSDs and NVMe

    M.2 NVMe, SATA flash, eMMC, and storage soldered to the logic board.

  • RAID arrays

    Striped, mirrored and parity sets: RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10, one member or the whole array.

  • USB flash drives

    Sticks that will not mount, report the wrong capacity, or ask to be formatted.

  • SD and microSD cards

    Camera cards, phone storage, dashcam loops, action camera footage.

  • Phones

    iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, Google Pixel and other Android handsets: wet, dropped or dead.

  • Tablets

    iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Android tablets, Microsoft Surface.

  • External enclosures

    Desktop and portable units from WD, Seagate, LaCie, G-Technology and OWC.

What Happens Next

From check-in to a copy of your files.

Nothing happens to your storage without you knowing about it first. You approve the work after the diagnostic, not before it.

  1. Bring it in, mail it, or call first

    Drop the drive, the computer or the phone at our Elk Grove shop, or mail it in from anywhere in the US if you are not nearby. If you would rather describe the problem first, call (916) 627-1818.

  2. Diagnostic at the bench

    The device is examined here, by the technician who would do the work, so the answers come from somebody with it in front of them. Ask about turnaround when you check in; it depends on the repair and parts availability.

  3. You get the findings and a price

    We tell you what the storage is doing, what we think can be read back, and what that costs. Every repair is quoted after inspection, before any work starts. Saying no is a normal answer.

  4. Recovery and transfer

    Once you approve it, we work from an image wherever the media allows one, and put whatever comes back onto a new drive, an external, or your replacement machine.

Your Options

Two ways in, one bench.

A big-box counter sends your drive off to a depot or a third party, and you lose track of where it is. Drop it off in Elk Grove or mail it in, and it comes straight to our own bench, where you hear from the technician working on it.

Data Recovery: iGeek compared with the alternatives

Where the work happens
At our bench in Elk Grove
Timing
Ask about turnaround when you check in; it depends on the repair and parts availability.
Talking to the person doing the work
Yes, at the counter; mail-ins hear from the technician
How you get a price
Every repair is quoted after inspection, before any work starts.
Clear about what it cannot do in-house
Told to you before work starts

In Their Words

What people told us afterwards.

Read our reviews on Google (opens in a new tab)

  • I wanted to get data off of a very old hard drive. I took it to Best Buy first but they needed to ship it out. I decided to take my hard drive back and see if iGeek was able to do it without shipping it. iGeek was able to retrieve the data out of this very old hard drive and do it in-house.

    Hard drive owner Old hard drivedata retrievalNov 2024 Google review

  • Hammad and Ryan were both great to work with. I found them after my iMac dying and losing essentially everything because the SSD drive failed. They’re smart, knowledgeable, and answered all my questions over multiple calls. I took my dead computer elsewhere first but should’ve gone to iGeek from the get-go. They gave me all my options and were not pushy in any way.

    iMac owner iMacSSD failureAug 2024 Google review

  • My wife’s old laptop died and you saved her memories and data on her new HP. This is third experience with iGeek and all were GREAT!

    Repeat customer Laptopdata transferSep 2025 Google review

  • I thought I had killed my iPad for real but iGeek successfully revived it and managed to restore most of my data (including the thousands of pictures of my dog which are irreplaceable). I can’t recommend them enough!!

    iPad owner iPadwater damageJan 2026 Google review

  • Apple told me my iPhone was beyond repair due to a faulty logic board and that my data was gone for good. I took it to iGeek and left it with Ryan. Turned out it was just a bad battery, replaced quickly and affordably.

    iPhone owner iPhonelogic board diagnosisMay 2025 Google review

Two Categories

What stays here, and what does not.

Recovery work splits along one line: whether the storage still functions well enough to be read at all. Jobs on the working side are done at our own bench in Elk Grove. Jobs that need a sealed drive opened in a controlled clean environment are not bench work, and we say so at the diagnostic, before you pay for a recovery attempt.

In-house at iGeek

Logical faults

The media powers up and responds; what is broken is the path to the data. These we handle at the Elk Grove shop, working from an image of the drive wherever it will give us one.

  • Files deleted, recycle bin emptied
  • Partition tables and file systems that no longer parse
  • Windows, macOS or Linux that will not boot
  • Updates that failed part way through
  • Failing drives imaged while they still respond
  • SSDs that enumerate but will not mount
  • Phones and tablets whose storage is still readable
  • Accidental formats and reinitialized volumes
Beyond the bench

Physical faults

The mechanism itself is damaged: heads, spindle motor, platters, or a board burned out by a surge. Opening a sealed drive anywhere but a controlled clean environment contaminates the platters, so this is not something we do here.

  • Clicking, ticking or grinding mechanisms
  • Head damage after a drop or a knock
  • Platters that have been exposed to liquid
  • Boards burned out by a power surge
  • Drives that never spin up
  • Seized spindle motors

We identify these at the diagnostic, whether the drive was dropped off or mailed in, and go through your options with you before anything is attempted. Every repair is quoted after inspection, before any work starts.

Mail-in data recovery

Not near Sacramento? Mail your drive in.

Outside the Sacramento area? Send your hard drive, SSD or USB stick to our Elk Grove shop. Pay for a prepaid label online; it covers shipping to us and back.

Start a mail-in repair Call (916) 627-1818

  1. Start with the form

    Pick your device and what went wrong, add your address, and pay for the prepaid label.

  2. Mail it to the shop

    Back up your data if the device still turns on, pack it so nothing moves inside the box, tape the label on and drop it at any Post Office.

  3. Diagnosis, then a price

    We find the fault, price the work and wait for your approval before any work starts.

About Cost

Why this one isn't on a price list.

Two jobs can be described in the same sentence and involve completely different work. Reading a deleted folder back off a healthy disk and coaxing anything at all out of a controller that has lost its mapping table are not the same undertaking, and no chart can tell them apart in advance.

So the number comes after the look, not before it. Diagnostic fee quoted at check-in and applied to your repair if you proceed. Once we know what the storage is really doing, you get the cost and our honest read on the odds, and you decide from there.

Frequently Asked

Asked at the counter, answered here.

My drive just failed. What should I do right now?
Stop using it and cut the power. Every extra spin-up or write on failing media narrows what can be read back later. Leave recovery software alone if the files matter to you. Call us at (916) 627-1818 and describe what happened.
What should I avoid doing before I bring it in or mail it?

Plenty of storage arrives here in worse shape than it was in when it failed, because of what was done in between. Any one of these can close the door for good:

  • Powering a clicking or grinding drive over and over, since every attempt can drag a damaged head across the platter.
  • Running repair or recovery utilities on failing media, which loads it hardest at its most fragile moment.
  • Accepting the prompt to initialize, format or erase, whatever the operating system suggests.
  • Reinstalling Windows or macOS onto the same disk, which writes straight over what you are trying to save.
  • Rebuilding a RAID set before anyone has looked at it, because a rebuild onto a degraded array can overwrite the good copy.
  • Charging or switching on a liquid-damaged phone or laptop, since current and moisture together speed up corrosion.

Shut it down, leave it alone, and bring it or mail it to us.

What does data recovery cost?
It follows the fault, not the number of files. We look at the device first and quote from what we find. Diagnostic fee quoted at check-in and applied to your repair if you proceed. A case that needs a sealed drive opened is a bigger undertaking than a logical read, and we tell you which of the two you are looking at before you commit.
How long will it take?
Ask about turnaround when you check in; it depends on the repair and parts availability. A large disk, a badly damaged file system, or a RAID set that has to be reassembled is more work than a straightforward read.
The drive is clicking. Can you still get the data?
Clicking almost always points at the heads or the motor, which makes it a physical fault. Opening a sealed drive calls for a controlled clean environment, and that is not work we do in-house. We confirm what is happening at the diagnostic and lay out your options so you can decide whether to take it further.
Can you pull data off a phone or tablet?
Often, yes. iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, Google Pixel, other Android handsets, iPads and most tablets. The usual cases are a soaking, a smashed screen on a device that still runs, a battery that has given out, or a board fault where the storage chip itself is undamaged.
What about SD cards and USB sticks?
Same bench. Camera cards, phone microSD, dashcam and action camera media, thumb drives. If a card or a stick has prompted you to format it, do not accept. Unplug it and bring it in, or mail it to us.
Can I mail my drive in?
Yes. Mail-in repairs are accepted for anything you are comfortable shipping to us. Start a mail-in repair from anywhere in the US, pick what went wrong and pay for the prepaid label; it covers shipping to us and back. Pack the drive so nothing moves inside the box. If it is clicking or was dropped, call us before you pack it so we can talk through your options first. Local? Dropping it off in Elk Grove saves it the trip.
Who sees my files while you have them?
The technician working on the job. Anything handled in-house stays in the shop from check-in until it goes back to you. When you collect it, or before we ship it back, tell us what you want done with the working copy and we will hand it over or erase it.
What if nothing comes back?
It happens, and we would rather say so early than late. Diagnostic fee quoted at check-in and applied to your repair if you proceed. You get our honest read on the odds before you authorize any recovery attempt, and we will not promise you an outcome we cannot see yet.
Where is the shop, and who do you serve?
We are at 8145 Elk Grove Blvd, Suite 12, Elk Grove, CA 95758, off Highway 99 south of Sacramento, and we look after Elk Grove and the Sacramento area. Walk-ins welcome. Appointments welcome. Quote requests welcome.

Next Step

Bring us the drive, or mail it in.

Come by the Elk Grove shop or call us. Not nearby? Mail the drive in from anywhere in the US; it comes straight to our bench, and you hear from the technician working on it.

Call (916) 627-1818 Mail it in

8145 Elk Grove Blvd, Suite 12, Elk Grove, CA 95758 | Mon-Fri 10-5, Sat 10-3

How we work

  1. Quoted before we start

    Every repair is quoted after inspection, before any work starts. Diagnostic fee quoted at check-in and applied to your repair if you proceed.

  2. Parts explained first

    We'll explain your part options before you decide.

  3. Local, in-house repairs

    Repairs are done at our Elk Grove shop by our own technicians. Ask about turnaround when you check in; it depends on the repair and parts availability.

  4. After the repair

    Ask about our repair warranty; terms are printed on your repair ticket.

Get a Repair Quote Call

Get a callback

Drop your name and number. A technician at our Elk Grove shop will reach out.