Data Recovery in Anchorage, KY

Anchorage is a place where people hold onto what matters, whether that’s a century-old home in the historic district or twenty years of family photographs on an external hard drive. When the drive fails, the instinct is to protect those files the same way you’d protect the house: carefully, locally, and with someone who knows what they’re doing.

I’m Steve Schardein, and I’ve been doing advanced data recovery in the Louisville area since 2012, six years after I started Triple-S Computers in 2006. My lab is about ten minutes from Anchorage, on the Middletown–Eastwood border. I do all recovery work myself, in-house, with professional imaging hardware that most local shops don’t own. When you call, you talk to me. When your data is recovered, you pick it up from me. Your files never leave Louisville.

Why the Equipment Matters

Most computer repair shops don’t actually perform data recovery—they run a free software tool, and if that doesn’t work, they ship your drive to a national lab and add their markup. I’ve invested in the tools to do the work properly: a DeepSpar Disk Imager for mechanically failing hard drives, a DeepSpar USB Stabilizer 10Gb for unstable external drives and SSDs, MRT Ultra for firmware-level work, and professional recovery suites including R-Studio Technician and UFS Explorer Professional.

What this equipment actually does is manage the conversation between the computer and a failing drive. When a mechanical drive is degrading, every read attempt wears the heads further. Standard software has no control over this; it just hammers the drive and hopes. The DeepSpar hardware controls every command, throttles and times reads, skips damaged areas to return to later, and can cut power instantly if the drive starts behaving dangerously.

What Anchorage Residents Usually Need Recovered

Anchorage is a small city of about 2,500 residents, largely professionals, executives, and established families. The recovery work I do here tends to be high-stakes, well-organized data on quality hardware: external hard drives holding years of consolidated family photos and home videos, business laptops with critical documents that stopped booting, and the occasional home-office NAS or backup drive that failed at exactly the wrong time. I also handle SD cards from cameras and USB flash drives.

One capability that surprises people: I recover data from encrypted drives. If your Windows drive uses BitLocker, your Mac uses FileVault, or your external volume is encrypted, I can still image and recover it—as long as you have the password or recovery key. The encryption doesn’t prevent recovery; it just adds a step after imaging.

A Case That Shows Why You Shouldn’t Run chkdsk

A recent case from my lab: an external Seagate drive that was mechanically failing, and on which Windows’ chkdsk had already been run before it reached me. I connected it to the DeepSpar USB Stabilizer, worked through a series of approaches to coax the drive into identifying itself, locked onto a stable ID, and imaged the file table first so I could target the actual user data. The imaging took several days of monitored passes, skipping troubled areas early and returning to them later.

The result: nearly 100% of the user data recovered, copied to a new 1 TB SK Hynix portable SSD and sorted back into the folders the client needed. The catch was that chkdsk had already moved some files around while “repairing” the failing drive, so part of the job was putting everything back where it belonged. That’s why I tell everyone: if a drive is acting up, don’t run repair tools on it. Total: $399, flat rate.

Flat-Rate Pricing with No Guesswork

I quote a flat rate before any work begins, and diagnosis is always free. If the recovery isn’t possible—or if it requires cleanroom procedures beyond my capabilities—you owe nothing. Logical recoveries (deleted files, reformatted or corrupted volumes on healthy media) start at $249. Most advanced recoveries on failing hardware are $399–$499, and the majority of all cases come in at $499 or less. Diagnosis is free, and if I can’t recover your data, you owe nothing. RAID arrays are priced per drive, and replacement media is ordered in your name at exactly what I pay.

Every completed recovery also includes a multi-page Service Report documenting what I found, what I used, and how the data was validated before I returned it.

When I’ll Refer You Elsewhere

I handle everything from logical reconstruction through firmware-level imaging, but I don’t do cleanroom work. If your drive has suffered a head crash, the motor has seized, or the platters are scored, the next step is a cleanroom with donor parts and specialized tools. That’s a different discipline, and I’d rather refer you to a lab that does it well than attempt something outside my capabilities. When I do refer clients out, I help them understand what the lab will need, what a fair price looks like, and what to watch out for.

Getting Here from Anchorage

Common Questions from Anchorage

Should I run chkdsk or recovery software on a failing drive first?

No. Repair tools like chkdsk write to the drive and can move or overwrite the very files you’re trying to save, and every hour a failing drive runs wears it further. Unplug it and bring it in; imaging comes first, repairs never.

Can you recover an encrypted drive?

Yes, as long as you have the password or recovery key. I image the drive first, then decrypt the image. BitLocker, FileVault, and encrypted external volumes all work. Without the key, modern encryption can’t be broken, and I’ll tell you that up front.

How far is your lab from Anchorage?

About ten minutes. Take Evergreen Road south to Shelbyville Road, turn left (east), continue under the Gene Snyder, and turn right onto South Beckley Station Road. Drop-off and pickup are by appointment.

If you’re in Anchorage and facing a failed drive, a corrupted volume, or data you’ve been told is gone for good, call me at (502) 233-4393. I’ll give you an honest assessment, a flat-rate quote, and—more often than not—your data back.