Data Recovery for Ostrava: Remote Service and Drive Collection

The short answer: We do not have a branch in Ostrava, and we will not pretend otherwise—the laboratory is in Brno-Židenice, and we serve the Moravian-Silesian Region remotely: you submit an enquiry, receive a shipping label by email, and collection through Zásilkovna is free. Initial HDD and SSD diagnostics are free of charge (for RAID, NAS, and non-standard cases, we provide a price in advance), you receive a fixed quote before any recovery work begins, and if the data cannot be recovered, you pay nothing for the recovery itself, only the shipping costs. The sole exception is a targeted search for one specifically named file, charged at a pre-agreed flat rate of CZK 1,000. We are roughly 170 kilometres and just under two hours from Ostrava via the D1 motorway—less than half the journey to Prague.

If you have a portable drive that is clicking or is no longer detected by your computer, the process is explained on our external drive data recovery page; general information about data recovery and sending us a drive remotely is available on the laboratory’s main page.

Ostrava has plenty of repair shops. The question is who will open the drive

In the country’s third-largest city, you can find several computer repair shops within fifteen minutes of almost any office, and most of them will do a good job: replacing a faulty USB bridge, reading a drive that still spins normally, or reinstalling Windows. Data recovery, however, has one hard boundary—the moment when the storage device must be physically opened. Beyond that point, a screwdriver and a recovery software licence are not enough. You need a clean environment, donor parts for the specific drive family, and a hardware imager capable of reading a damaged surface in small sections without stopping at the first error.

There are far fewer facilities with a clean chamber than online listings might suggest. You can identify them by asking two questions: where exactly is the chamber located, and who exactly will replace your drive’s heads? If the answer is „we send it to a partner", there is nothing improper about that—just be aware that the drive will still be sent elsewhere, you will not know where, and the price will include a middleman’s margin.

So, to be completely clear: our laboratory is in Brno-Židenice. We do not have one in Ostrava, Havířov, or Frýdek-Místek, and your drive will be sent to us. This article explains what that journey involves and what can go wrong before it even begins.

The first ten minutes matter more than which company you choose

Most data is lost between the moment someone notices a problem and the moment they pick up the phone. Not through negligence, but through an attempt to help.

• Turn it off and leave it off. With a mechanically damaged drive, every additional start spins up the motor again and creates another opportunity for the heads to scrape the platter surface. Once the magnetic surface has been scraped away, nobody can read it—the data is simply no longer there.
• Do not try four companies in succession. Faulty mechanics do not allow an unlimited number of attempts, and every additional „free initial HDD diagnostic" means another pass over the same damaged surface. Choose one facility and let it complete the process.
• Do not write anything else to the source drive. Do not install recovery software on it or save recovered files to it. Recovery work is performed from an image—a sector-by-sector copy—and the results are stored elsewhere.
• Do not start a rebuild on a disk array until the data exists somewhere else. I explain why below—it is the most expensive mistake discussed in this article.
• Write down what happened and what you have already tried. Include unsuccessful attempts and whether anyone has already opened the drive. An undisclosed attempt costs us time and can sometimes cost you your data.

What the symptoms mean and what you can still try

When not to attempt recovery yourself and what we will do

The table shows when a DIY attempt is most likely to cause further damage:

• the drive clicks, beeps, or repeatedly spins up—every additional power-on reduces the chance of recovery, so do not try anything else;
• the drive is not detected at all when connected, or it disappeared after a storm—the fault is in the electronics or mechanics, and reconnecting it will not solve the problem;
• the drive was dropped and has not spun since—only diagnostics, not another attempt, can determine whether it must be opened.

Turn the drive off and leave it to our external drive data recovery service, or visit the HDD data recovery page for an internal hard drive. From Ostrava, the process has three steps:

1. Intake—you submit an enquiry, receive a shipping label, and send the drive using our collection service (or bring it to Brno-Židenice); we record the symptoms and everything you have already tried.
2. Diagnostics—we identify the fault and determine what can be recovered. Initial diagnostics for a standard HDD or SSD may be free; in non-standard cases (the drive was opened by another repair shop, data was overwritten or formatted, or complex analysis is required), the fee is 1 210 Kč including VAT (1 000 Kč excluding VAT), and we tell you beforehand. A simple initial assessment of a RAID or NAS may be free; we quote more complex analysis in advance.
3. A fixed quote, then the work—you receive a fixed price before recovery begins, and we do nothing further to the drive without your consent, so you can calmly decline after the diagnostics.

Is it urgent? Call our 24/7 hotline at +420 775 556 063.

Send the complete external drive, not one removed from its enclosure

One detail surprises people every time: in WD My Passport portable drives, the USB controller is soldered directly to the drive’s circuit board, and the hardware encryption is tied to it. Moving the platters into another enclosure or connecting them through SATA is not enough—without the original electronics, they remain encrypted. In some desktop models, the key is stored on a separate bridge board inside the enclosure. That is why you should send the complete device, including its original cable and power adapter. By contrast, many Seagate Expansion and Backup Plus models contain a standard SATA drive with a removable bridge, so if the bridge fails, the data remains intact and the repair is one of the least expensive cases.

Business NAS and servers: where things most often go wrong

Businesses generally send us storage systems rather than laptops—production documentation, CAD files, accounting records, and CCTV footage. A NAS has one characteristic that encourages hasty action: it looks like an appliance, but inside it is a fully fledged Linux machine.

Both Synology and QNAP build volumes on top of software-based md-RAID, often with an additional LVM layer above it, followed by ext4 or btrfs. The good news is that the data is therefore not locked inside the enclosure and can often be read outside it. The bad news is that an unqualified attempt to „reassemble the array" can damage each of these layers independently, while thin provisioning also requires the block mapping to be reconstructed. The Synology: storage pool degraded and volume crashed article explains what to do when DSM reports a crashed volume.

The most expensive mistake is starting a rebuild before a copy exists. An array rebuild reads every remaining drive from beginning to end—for an array built from four high-capacity drives, that means hours or even days under full load. If the drives came from the same delivery, as they almost always do, they have the same number of operating hours and often come from the same production batch. A rebuild is therefore precisely the moment when the second drive is likely to fail.

One final point about NAS systems: a snapshot stored on the same device is not a backup. Waves of ransomware aimed directly at internet-exposed NAS devices have shown that an attacker with administrator access can also deal with snapshots. A backup is stored elsewhere and cannot be overwritten from the compromised machine.

A replacement drive can no longer be taken for granted

This is a development from recent months that most small businesses have not yet noticed. Data-centre demand for high-capacity drives has absorbed manufacturers’ production capacity far into the future: lead times for nearline models have increased, and prices have risen. This has three practical consequences for arrays in small businesses:

1. Buy a cold spare before you need it. The plan to „buy the same model that afternoon if one fails" no longer works—and running a degraded array for a week without a replacement is a serious gamble.
2. Do not buy every drive for the array at once from a single source. Splitting the purchase means receiving drives from different batches and reducing the risk of simultaneous failures.
3. Remember the destination medium. Recovered data needs somewhere to go: an empty drive at least as large as the damaged one, and preferably larger. If you do not have one, sourcing it will extend the recovery time.

What to obtain in writing

The protection of personal and confidential data does not depend on whether the device comes from a home laptop or a business system—it depends on your role and what happens to the data. For business media, personal-data processing, confidentiality, security, and the deletion of working copies usually need to be covered by contract. The drive contains information about employees and customers, and once you hand it to the laboratory, the laboratory becomes a personal-data processor. Before the device leaves your premises, obtain the following four points in writing:

• a data-processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR, not merely a verbal assurance of confidentiality;
• what will happen to the working copy of your data and exactly when it will be deleted;
• a fixed price before recovery begins and a clear statement of what you will pay if the data cannot be recovered;
• who will physically open the device and where—whether the supplier will do so directly or send it to a partner.

If your company falls within the scope of zákon o kybernetické bezpečnosti, this is not a formality but a matter of demonstrable compliance: the regulator asks for measures that can be documented, and any supplier handling your data forms part of those measures. The article NIS2 a zákon 264/2025 Sb. summarises who is affected.

How a drive gets from Ostrava to Brno

1. Free collection through Zásilkovna. Complete the enquiry form, select collection, and you will receive a shipping label by email. Attach it and hand the package in at any branch. Shipping adds approximately one working day in each direction.
2. Your own parcel service or courier. This is useful for a complete NAS, multiple array members, or when you want to supervise the transport yourself.
3. Bring it to the laboratory in person. It is roughly 170 kilometres via the D1 motorway and just under two hours by car: Viniční 3587/216, Brno-Židenice, Monday to Friday, 10:00–16:00, by prior telephone arrangement. Our data recovery in Brno page explains when the journey is worthwhile and when it is unnecessary overhead. The data recovery for Olomouc article discusses the same decision for a closer city.
4. An on-site visit. The price is CZK 800 plus CZK 10 per kilometre, so for Ostrava it will amount to several thousand korunas; we tell you the exact figure in advance. This option only makes sense when the equipment cannot or must not be transported—for example, a live rack server, an array that must first be shut down safely, or data that must not leave the building.

There are three rules for packaging: use an antistatic bag, at least five centimetres of soft padding on every side, and a sturdy cardboard box—never a padded envelope. Bear in mind that you cannot insure the data itself. Zásilkovna allows additional parcel-value coverage up to CZK 10,000; without it, compensation may only amount to a few hundred korunas. With any carrier, however, compensation covers the value of the hardware, never the value of the data. Terms also change, so check them when sending the parcel.

How much it costs and what you pay if recovery fails

Initial HDD and SSD diagnostics are free and carry no obligation. In non-standard cases (the device was opened by another repair shop, data was overwritten or formatted, or complex analysis is required), diagnostics cost 1 210 Kč including VAT (1 000 Kč excluding VAT)—we tell you in advance. Once diagnostics are complete, we know what happened to the device, and you receive a fixed price before recovery begins, not after the data has already been recovered. If recovery is unsuccessful, you pay nothing for the recovery itself, only the shipping costs. The other exception is a targeted search for one specifically named file: this is charged at a pre-agreed flat rate of CZK 1,000, even if the file is not found.

The price is determined by the type of work, not the drive’s capacity. Logical recovery from a healthy device, electronics replacement, clean-chamber work, and reconstructing an array from multiple members are four entirely different levels of service—and the difference between the lowest and highest can amount to tens of thousands of korunas. That is precisely why the price is determined after diagnostics and why we give it to you before starting the work.

One final request, because this happens repeatedly: if the drive is clicking, not spinning, or the array reports a failure, do not try it one more time. With the machine switched off, call 775 556 063—our data recovery hotline is available 24/7. Skipping that one extra attempt is often the difference between a recovery costing a few thousand korunas and data that nobody will ever be able to read.

Where to find us

ITHOPE is a company based in Brno, Czechia: we do data recovery from disks, RAID and NAS, PC and laptop service and IT for business, all in our own lab at Viniční 3587/216, 615 00 Brno.

Phone +420 775 556 063 (24/7 line). You can bring the device in person, or send it by courier (Zásilkovna, PPL).