If you have lost access to a crypto wallet because the computer or drive it was housed on has failed, there is an important distinction to understand, because it determines whether anyone can help. Recovering a wallet file from dead storage is genuine data recovery, and often very doable. However, recovering a lost seed phrase or password is not data recovery at all, and no reputable company will be able to do it. Below is the true picture, along with the crypto scams you should steer well clear of.
A wallet has two components: a wallet file or app, and the secret that unlocks it (a seed phrase or password). If a failed hard drive holds the file, recovery can get it back. On the other hand, if the seed or password itself is lost, it doesn’t matter how many people attempt to recover your cryptocurrency: the crypto is gone, and anyone promising otherwise is best avoided.
First, let’s review the lay of the land. A hardware wallet (a Ledger, Trezor and the like) is simply a small physical device that stores your private keys offline; it requires a PIN, and it is backed up by a seed phrase you were told to write down and store elsewhere. A software wallet, on the other hand, stores its private keys in a file on your computer or phone (a wallet.dat, a keystore file or an app’s data), which typically requires a password. Data recovery can only interact with one component of this: the files stored on failed media. It cannot reach inside a hardware wallet, nor recreate a secret that only ever existed in your memory or on a piece of paper you have lost. Therefore, whether we can help depends on what you have actually lost.
There’s good news here, and it is a real and common case. If your wallet file, keystore, or a written backup of your seed phrase lived on a hard drive, SSD or USB stick which has since failed (the computer will not boot, the drive cannot be detected, the disk was reformatted or the file was deleted), this is ordinary data recovery. The drive is recovered read-only to retrieve your wallet file, and you use it with the password you already have. Far more people lose access to their wallets in this way than lose the actual secret: the wallet was stored on a laptop which died, or a drive which was wiped. A wallet file on a failed hard drive or SSD is a single-drive recovery from £300 +VAT.
Now for the honest limit. If you’ve lost the secret (the seed phrase, the wallet password, or the PIN for a hardware wallet), then no data recovery, and no reputable business of any kind, can retrieve it. These things are deliberately protected by strong cryptography: a seed phrase cannot be reverse-engineered from a wallet, a good password cannot be brute-forced in any realistic period of time, and a hardware wallet will wipe itself after too many incorrect PIN attempts. This is the intended behaviour that protects your cryptocurrency from thieves, and it applies equally to you if the secret is genuinely gone. We would rather be upfront and tell you so immediately than charge you money chasing the impossible.
Because so much value is locked behind lost secrets, an entire industry of “crypto recovery” scams has grown up targeting desperate owners, and they are especially cruel because they often target people who have already fallen victim to a scam or lost funds. The warning signs are consistent: promises of guaranteed success (no one can guarantee recovering a lost seed), promises to recover stolen or scammed cryptocurrency (once it’s moved, it’s gone), demands for an upfront payment, or requests for your seed phrase or remote access to your device (which simply allows them to steal what remains). Never give out your seed phrase to anyone. Real data recovery services deal with failed hardware and provide a diagnosis first; if someone says they will reverse cryptography, walk away.
That depends on what was lost. If the wallet file, keystore, or a written backup of your seed phrase was on a hard drive or computer that failed, this is just regular data recovery and is often very achievable: we recover the drive and the file, and then you use your existing password. However, if the seed phrase, wallet password or hardware-wallet PIN itself is lost, no legitimate service can recover it, since these are protected by strong cryptography.
Most likely, yes, if the wallet file was stored on the drive. Dead computers, undetectable drives, reformatted disks and deleted files are all standard data recovery: we recover the failed drive read-only and retrieve the wallet file. This is one of the most frequent ways people lose access to their wallets, and also one of the easiest to recover. A single-drive recovery starts from £300 plus VAT.
No. There is no way to reverse-engineer a seed phrase from a wallet, it would take an unrealistic amount of time to brute-force a strong password, and a hardware wallet will wipe itself after repeated wrong PIN attempts. All of this is intentional: it protects your cryptocurrency from thieves, and it applies to you too, so if the secret is genuinely gone, there is nothing we (or anyone else) can do to get it back. Any service guaranteeing to recover a lost seed phrase is a scam.
You should look out for services promising guaranteed success, those claiming they can get back stolen or scammed crypto, those that demand an upfront fee, and any that ask for your seed phrase or for remote access to your device. Under no circumstances should you give your seed phrase to anyone. Legitimate data recovery companies work on faulty hardware and provide a diagnosis first; if a company claims to reverse cryptography or recover moved funds, walk away.
No, and you should never share your seed phrase with anyone, not even us. Data recovery retrieves the file containing your wallet from the failed drive. Unlocking this file with your password is something you do privately, by yourself, once you have the file back. Any time someone asks for your seed phrase or wallet password, it’s a red flag that it’s a scam.
If the drive or computer holding your wallet file has died, we can recover the file read-only, and you hold on to your seed and password. Free diagnostic, fixed quote first.