💾 Professional Data Recovery Services in South Africa
Lost critical business data? Don't panic. Our expert data recovery team has over 15 years of experience recovering data from failed hard drives, corrupted databases, and damaged storage devices across Pretoria, Johannesburg, and South Africa.
Our Data Recovery Expertise
We recover data from all types of storage devices and failure scenarios
Hard Drive Recovery
Failed HDDs, SSDs, mechanical damage, head crashes
Database Recovery
SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, corrupted databases
Laptop & PC Recovery
System crashes, boot failures, corrupted partitions
Server Recovery
RAID arrays, NAS devices, enterprise storage
Mobile Device Recovery
Android, iOS, tablets, phone data recovery
File System Repair
NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, partition recovery
Ransomware Recovery
Encrypted files, malware damage, virus recovery
Emergency Recovery
24/7 critical business data recovery services
Our Data Recovery Process
Professional, secure, and confidential data recovery with high success rates
Initial Assessment
Free diagnosis and evaluation of your storage device to determine recovery feasibility
Detailed Quote
Transparent pricing with no hidden fees. You approve before we proceed with recovery
Recovery Process
Our experts use advanced tools and clean room facilities for safe data extraction
Data Verification
Quality checks and verification before secure delivery of your recovered data
What Our Clients Say
Trusted by businesses across South Africa for critical data recovery
"Our server crashed and we thought we lost 5 years of client records. Code Masters recovered 99% of our data within 48 hours. Their emergency response saved our business."
David Pretorius
Financial Services, Pretoria
"After a ransomware attack, Code Masters helped us recover our encrypted patient database. Professional, confidential service. Their clean room facility is impressive."
Priya Naidoo
Healthcare Provider, Johannesburg
"My external hard drive stopped working with 10 years of family photos and client work. Code Masters recovered everything! Transparent pricing, no hidden fees."
Willem Botha
Photography Studio, Cape Town
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about our data recovery services
Emergency Data Recovery
Critical business data loss? We offer 24/7 emergency recovery services across South Africa.
What Can Be Recovered, Honestly
Most losses fall into three classes. The class decides what is possible, how long it takes and what it costs.
Logical: the hardware is fine
Usually recoverable
Deleted files, quick-formatted drives, corrupted partitions, most file-system damage, databases that will not open.
Usually not
Data already overwritten by new files; deletions on an SSD once TRIM has cleared the blocks.
Mechanical: the drive is broken
Usually recoverable
Failed read heads, seized motors and stuck heads where the platters are undamaged. Skilled workshop work, never a quick job.
Usually not
Platters that are scored, shattered or burnt. Once the magnetic surface is gone, so is the data on it.
Electronic: the board has failed
Usually recoverable
PCB failures after a surge or a bad power supply, with the platters and heads untouched - the common case after load-shedding.
Usually not
Surges that also took the heads or the pre-amplifier with them, which turns the case into a mechanical one.
Encrypted drives without the key and files encrypted by ransomware are not recovery jobs; the key or the backup is. Anyone promising a result before looking at the drive is guessing.
The First Ten Minutes
Do this
- Stop using the drive. Every write is a risk to the data you want back.
- Power it down cleanly if you can, and leave it off.
- Write down what happened: the sounds, the error messages, whether the power had just come back.
- If the boot drive is affected, leave the machine off rather than restarting it again and again.
- Phone before trying fixes. 060 131 5099, weekdays 07:00-18:00, emergencies 24/7.
Not this
- Do not keep powering a clicking drive. Each spin-up with failed heads can scrape the platters further.
- Do not run CHKDSK or any repair on a failing disk. It writes to the disk and can "fix" the file system into a state that no longer points at your files.
- Do not install recovery software onto the same drive. Installing anything writes over the very files you want back.
- Do not open the drive, not even to look. Dust and fingerprints on a platter are permanent.
- Do not freeze it. Condensation on the platters does real damage; the freezer trick belongs to a different era of drives.
How a Job Runs
1. Intake
We record the drive, the symptoms and what has already been tried. Be honest about the attempts; it changes the approach and nobody is judging.
2. Imaging first
Before anything else we make a sector-by-sector copy onto healthy storage, skipping bad areas and returning to them later, so the original spends as little time powered up as possible.
3. Working from the image
Rebuilding the file system or carving out files happens on the copy. The original is not touched again unless the image is incomplete and the risk is worth it.
4. File list before quote
You see what has been found, so you know whether the folders you care about are there before you commit to anything.
5. Quote, then your approval
Recovery is quoted after assessment and nothing is done without your approval. We do not publish prices because there is no honest single number: failure type, drive condition, capacity, number of drives and urgency all move it.
RAID and NAS: do not rebuild
A RAID array is a way of surviving one drive failing, not a backup. When two fail, or the controller fails, or someone starts a rebuild with the wrong drive, the whole array is at risk. Label the bay order on the drives before anything is removed, say no to "initialise" or "create a new volume", note the model and RAID level, and bring the set in together. Our RAID recovery guide goes deeper.
The cheapest recovery is the one you never need
Three copies of your data, on two kinds of storage, one of them off site, and a restore tested once a month. Microsoft 365 mailboxes and OneDrive need their own backup; Microsoft keeps them available, not recoverable. A UPS on the server prevents most of the electronic failures that follow load-shedding. That is what disaster recovery and managed IT support are for.