Commodity recovery shops optimise for getting files back — not for proving where they came from. If there is any chance the data will be used in a dispute, insurance claim or proceeding, recovery must preserve metadata and chain of custody. Doing it twice is rarely possible: the first attempt often determines whether the data survives at all.
Clicking or non-spinning hard drives, water- and fire-damaged devices, phones that will not boot, corrupted RAID sets, formatted or repartitioned media, and encrypted containers where credentials are unavailable or withheld — recovered lawfully and documented throughout. If the phone still works and you need its messages, apps and location examined, see mobile phone forensics.
Power it off immediately and do not run recovery software. Mechanical failures worsen with every spin-up. Ship it to our lab or call us for urgent guidance.
Frequently, yes — through board-level repair, JTAG or chip-off techniques depending on the device. Success rates are highest when no other repair has been attempted first.
Yes, when recovery is performed forensically: imaging through write-blockers, hash verification and documented chain of custody. That is our standard process on every job.