Robert saved my files... and my livelihood! I learned a very hard lesson about backing up my data recently. My computer crashed, and I was absolutely terrified that I had lost all of my crucial work files. While I do back up my data, I hadn't properly backed up my most current files from 2025--and I desperately needed them. I initially sent my drive to a different company that advertised a 96% success rate, but they ultimately failed and told me they couldn't recover anything. Refusing to give up, I went to Robert for a second opinion. It was the best decision I could have made. Robert was able to recover everything. Data recovery is definitely not cheap, but honestly, his service was worth every single penny. read more

Mr. Kotar personally recovered data from our m.2 NVME SSD that literally went up in smoke. All data was recovered. Communication was good through the process. read more

I honestly cannot thank Robert iPhone Data Recovery enough. The data on my phone wasn't just files -- it included irreplaceable photos and videos of my child. When my phone stopped working, I was completely heartbroken and stressed. I took my phone to multiple places before Robert. Each place took 3-7 days just to diagnose and then told me there was nothing they could do. I was starting to accept that those memories were gone forever. Then I found Robert. From the start, he was calm, honest, and incredibly knowledgeable. He diagnosed the issue in less than 3 hours, explained everything clearly, and gave me real hope. Even more amazing -- he was able to recover my data within a very reasonable timeline. When I saw my kid's photos again, it was an emotional moment I won't forget. If you're dealing with data that truly matters -- family photos, memories you can't replace -- don't waste time anywhere else. Robert is a lifesaver. Professional, fast, and genuinely cares about his customers. I highly, highly recommend him. read more

I highly recommend Kotar Data Recovery. My drive was in terrible condition. I initially tried to run diagnostics myself using TestDisk and DiskPart from the Windows Recovery environment. When I checked it via TestDisk on macOS, the HDD appeared as 0 bytes / 0 GiB, indicating a much deeper disk or partition-level issue. It turned out the PCB was damaged, the translator was corrupted, and two heads were misaligned. Despite the severe damage, Kotar successfully recovered 100% of my data, and I am incredibly happy to have everything back. I trusted them from the start because of their "no data, no charge" policy. What makes them even better is that they are a trustworthy, local business right here in San Jose. Unlike many of the large data recovery services, you don't have to mail your drive away to some random location. If you need data recovery, look no further than Kotar! read more

A half cup of water spilled on the desktop and trickled down to my storage drive. Yikes it quit working, not recognized even! I realized it was going to either take my data files to hard drive heaven or I would need to find a remedial service. I looked quite a while before I came back to Kotar and carried it on an appointment. It was a more distant place but it was worth the extra mile as eventually Robert was able to transfer everything over to a new drive. He maintained the data in the event I needed it and it turned out that was a lifesaver (long story I won't go into) but everything is 100% back to normal and I highly recommend KOTAR for his expertise and prompt work. read more

Professional and competitive pricing for data recovery or a hard drive! Robert is very knowledgeable and hard working

I don't think you'll find a more professional team for data recovery. My hard drive was in REALLY BAD shape, and I was pretty sure the data was gone for good. They clearly know what they're doing. Instead of taking a quick pass at it, they worked through multiple recovery approaches and were very thorough the entire time. They kept me updated, were straightforward about expectations, and didn't waste time. They were able to recover ALL of my data from a drive I assumed was beyond saving, and did it faster than I expected given the condition. Amazing experience overall. read more

kotar is well organized and friendly. They exceeded my expectations, I recommend this company for all your data issues. Willie Adams read more

Kotar recovered data from a very damaged drive. It took them a while and couple of tries to get it, but the point is that they stuck with it. It took months and I think ​they even developed new tools to get more data. It was a mess. ​They were true to their word and recovered project data that would have taken me ​months to reproduce. I think other services would have given up. Robert does really care. (Back up your data now!)​. Minus half a star for infrequent communication. read more

We had a failed hard drive on a MacBook Air and reached out to Kotar Data Recovery for help. Robert handled our case and did a phenomenal job. He was super responsive, kept us informed throughout the entire process, and had a surprisingly fast turnaround. Most importantly, he was able to recover everything we needed--something we honestly weren't sure would be possible. We're really thankful for the thorough work and clear communication. If you ever find yourself dealing with a drive failure (hopefully not, but it happens), I'd absolutely recommend Kotar. Robert knows what he's doing, and it made a stressful situation a lot easier to handle. read more

Kotar recovered all of my data from a badly burnt and water damaged external hard drive. It was my only digital archive of family photos, financial files, work history, etc. after a house fire. Kotar stuck with a difficult recovery, never giving up, and successfully recovered ALL of my files. I am so grateful I found this local business that did such an amazing job. read more

Kota Data Recovery saved my data and saved my life. Two of my hard drives--one containing over twenty years of work data--were mistakenly re-formatted--one of them twice. I was devastated. Using some specialized software, Robert at Kota Data Recovery was able to recover essentially all of my data. This was a tremendous amount of work, which he did in about a week. The cost, especially considering the time and expertise required for this job, was more than reasonable. Obviously, I hope not to need this work done again, but if I did, I would, without a doubt, have Kota Data Recovery do the work. I highly recommend them! read more

I don't know how Robert does what he does-- that is not the point. The point is that he is amazing at what he does. I had a challenging case, in which a RAID 0 of four drives in my old desktop computer suddenly vanished from Windows File Explorer. Robert spent a lot of time on this case, and a lot of effort was involved. He told me that the SMART data indicated that there was a temperature-related drive failure, and that the volume may or may not be recoverable. It took a few months, but then he gave me the good news: he had recovered the entire 17 terabyte volume successfully! I took a look at the preview file that he shared, which was a directory tree that was easily understandable. All my old files were on there. These things are irreplaceable and go back 20+ years. Amazingly, I am now transferring 1.5 million old files onto my new workstation from a large external hard drive that Robert provided. The cost was substantial-- however, this is the greatest ever service and Robert also arranged to hand-deliver my drive with a courier right to my office, at no additional charge. Worth the wait, and worth the money. I could not have asked for more, and Robert deserves heaps of praise for how he handled this difficult case. Hopefully there is not a next time, but if there is, I know who to call. Thanks, Robert! read more

Data recovery is not a cheap thing--we all know this. But, Kotar has incredibly reasonable pricing and I will always recommend them and go back if I need to (always back-up your data and don't attempt data recovery yourself! Leave it to the professionals). Robert and team were exceptional with communication, updates on my hard-drive, and were very sweet people. Thank you so so much! read more

My SSD crashed irreparably (I naively was unaware this was even possible), and Best Buy's Geek Squad was unable to access it to save anything. Robert was able to retrieve all my files and did it within a few days! The common complaint is that the cost often exceeds that of a new computer. While true, that misses the point: your data, your photos, your life are on the SSD. Robert named a price from the outset, and kept it, even tho we were all unsure what would be required to resurrect the data. A straight-shooter: rare in today's social and political climate. read more

Kotar saved our Raid Drive data that I was certain lost. 4 out of 8 drives were damaged. Kotar was able recover all the data and I was able to rebuild a new server with the recovered data. This could easily have gone into six figures if it were not for Kotar's expertise and late-night efforts. I highly recommend their services. Very friendly as well, they saw me immediately without an appointment and spoke with my IT manager and answered all of our questions until we were comfortable with the process. read more

Very professional. They gave me a set time to check my phone but since they needed to run more checks I had to leave my phone with them. Unfortunately the data I was trying to retrieve was currently not worth the price so they sent me my phone back overnight for free. So the shipping and consultation was all free. If ever I needed some data recovered I will definitely check with them again. read more

I want to start off this review by saying it's not my first time getting data recovery done. My line of work using old machines and repairing old machines eventually leads me to a data recovery facility where getting all the data is critical. So I have done this many times. However it's my first time in the San Jose area. I spent some time browsing the internet trying to find a data repair facility with a lab on site. Kotar is the place, look no further. You will not find a more professional facility than Kotar. Under estimate and over deliver is what I got from them. The read head on my early 2000s hard drive went bad and they had the part in stock. At the end of the day I had confirmation that the data was recovered. Excellent service, very nice people working here, well priced. I don't write baseless reviews unless it truly made an impact on me and I thought others should know about this place. Until next time! :) read more

recovered the data from my disk damaged 13 years ago, which has a lot of precious pictures and videos there. thx a lot.

I honestly thought I had lost all of my irreplaceable data when my hard drive crashed (due to DIY fixing), but Kotar Data Recovery recovered all my files without delay and professionally. Robert was friendly, explained the process, and gave me a fair price. Very happy with the end result, I highly recommend! Thank you so much, JY read more

My NAS crashed and I lost 25 years of photos. The manufacturer couldn't help, and the big data recovery companies said maybe but it would be very expensive. Robert looked at the NAS, confirmed recovery was possible, and charged a very reasonable fee. I have all my photos back and I could not be happier with the service Robert provided. read more

Had a hard drive that failed, they fixed recovered the data. Exactly what I wanted. Robert kept me updated and was very helpful.

If your iPhone suddenly can no longer boot up because the storage is full, the employees at Apple will tell you that you have to factory reset the phone. (terrible oversite design by Apple) If you do pay for iCloud your photos and videos are fine. In my case I had not recently backed up my photos and did not want to lose years of photos. I was recommended this place from the people working at Apple because they couldn't do anything for me there. Robert did a fine job of recovering my photographs and videos that were on my iPhone 12. I am not too familiar with the data recovery process, so I didn't know what to expect for how long this would take. It did take longer than I hoped (a little less than a month) but he recovered what I needed. This is a COSTLY procedure but if you were desperate like me and needed to recover photos of close family members that have passed away it is worth it. Thank you for everything Robert, cheers! read more

Mr. Kotar is expert at what he does , he was able to recover all the information we thought was lost in our hard-drive within in days of reaching out.. I highly recommend anyone who has a broken hard-drive to give it to Mr.Kotar to fix. read more

Robert at Kotar Data Recovery was awesome. Very good communication (constant communication throughout the whole process, from the estimate, the data recovery, etc). They provided a fixed price after examining the damage to my phone and an estimated time frame. When they ran into complications, they communicated that to me. When I got the data back, some of it wasn't showing up. They worked on it some more (no extra charge) and were able to recover all of the data. I was extremely happy to recover it all. While data recovery is costly, Kotar's price was on the lower side than other estimates I was getting at other places. And the fact that once they give you the fixed price, even if they have to keep working, they won't charge more. So I sincerely appreciate all the work they did to recover my data. I hope not to damage my phone in the future, but if I do, I will definitely bring my tech here for data recovery. Excellent work and excellent customer service. I strongly recommend! read more

TL;DR This company helped me recover 90% of my data from a damaged hard drive from 2010. I had reached out to Kotar in summer 2023 to try to recover data from a damaged external hard drive. I damaged it in 2010 and have just been holding on to it in hopes of one day recovering my memories. I've even gone to two other data recovery centers/companies since 2010 and they said that it was not possible to recover. I decided to give it one more shot with Kotar. They offer a free diagnostic and let you know whether it is possible or not to recover. Color me surprised when Robert said it could be done. I've already had two other people say it wasn't possible and my hopes were slowly dwindling. He provided me a quote and although it was pricey, I felt like I was in a better place financially to take the dive. I can tell you, that it was 110% worth the cost. Robert and his team were consistent with their communication with me. They diagnosed the problem within a few days and gave me a detailed response on the issue with the drive and the plan of action to recover as much data as possible. It took a few months to get get some results. I know they were working hard on it due to the extent of the damage. They provided me with a loaner drive with what they could recover. It took me a week or so to go through the contents and I noticed that I was missing a large chunk of photos. Robert and his team offered to do an additional deep scan to see if they could find anything else. I received the second batch of data about a month later and this set had about 90% of what I was looking for. It took me much longer to go through this data set since there were so many photos. I appreciate that they let me hold on to the loaner drive longer than anticipated. I asked Robert if it was possible to find the remaining 10% of data and he informed me they had done everything in their power to recover all the data and that there isn't anything else he could do. Overall, we did about three iterations in order to find what I was looking for. Although I didn't get everything back, I'm still extremely happy to have recovered 90% of my photos. I'm so grateful to Kotar, they helped me recover photos from an old, damaged external hard drive that was at least 15 years old. I HIGHLY recommend them if you ever need any data recovered. If I ever need this type of service again, I will definitely come back to Kotar. Hopefully never, I've learned my lesson.... I have a two back ups for my hard drives now! Thank you to Robert and the Kotar team!! read more

My external hard drive went dead and I had years of stuff that I would file into that drive for the past 20 years. I thought I had lost all the memories and history. Luckily, I reached out to Kotar, they got back to me right away and was very professional and clear about their services. I will definitely go to them first if I need help with data recovery in the future. They are definitely experts in this industry. read more

I unfortunately suffered an unexpected failure of a MacBook, and had almost resigned myself to losing the data on it. At the last moment, someone recommended I take my case to Robert at Kotar Data Recovery and I'm so happy I did. He was extremely helpful and very professional with handling my case, answering any questions I had clearly and directly and we ultimately figured out a recovery plan that resolved every issue I came in with. I am beyond satisfied with his work. I absolutely recommend Robert's services to anyone in need of data recovery. read more

Meticulous handling of media and data, extremely polite. Beyond expectation. They really know what they're doing.

Superb guy to work with. Dropped my phone from a decent height. Apple diagnostics said phone was dead. No life. Recommended a company who wanted to charge me an arm and both legs if they could successfully retrieve my data. Did my own research and called a few companies locally and the only one who called me back was Robert. Cracked motherboard was the problem. Robert was the solution. He seemed to fix something which seemed impossible to fix. Amazing knowledge, great work ethic, and ideal communication. Took longer then originally promised but hey, if he couldn't figure a solution at the end of the day it was my mistake I made and my fault for losing the data on my phone. He was putting forth the time and effort to help me and luckily it worked. Highly recommend this company for data recovery. read more

I lost almost 6 TB of photos on a corrupted drive. It was a complicated recovery executed with speed, skill and integrity. The owner followed-up with me regarding setting up a more secure system going forward, helping both with new hardware recommendations and guidance with implementation. I'd give more stars if I could. Just the best. read more

My case: accidently overwrote a Seagate 2TB drive with years of videos and pictures (PC) with a Macbook backup. Robert at Kotar took in the drive, worked on it, and recovered the data. They even provided a loaner drive for 15 days to download the recovered data. Best of all, their motto: no data, no pay. If you are in the San Jose/South Valley area and need data recovery services, this is the place to go. No need to mail your device anywhere. Very highly recommended. read more

My iPhone died, completely. And I hadn't been backing it up. I took it to a place near my house and they had my phone for 4 days, and were unable to get the data. I drove 45 minutes to Kotar and they extracted my data in less than a couple hours. Great service, and I got all the data off my phone. read more

Robert was incredible, highly professional and gets the job done! When my husband's phone was badly damaged by ocean water, we thought the data was lost for good. But Robert worked incredibly hard despite many obstacles to retrieve all the data from my husband's phone including photos and videos that meant a lot to us. We highly recommend Robert and Kotar Data Recovery! read more

Kotar Data Recovery was able to salvage the data in my old iPhone that I had broke the screen on and hadn't used in years. While the people at Apple told me they would likely have to wipe the data from the phone just to fix the screen, KDR was able to extract all the data and save many good memories. Highly recommend if you need something important recovered! read more

Miracle worker! He refuses to give up despite barriers he found a way. I got all my data back. Not only was he professional but also " just a good guy ". read more

Happy I worked with Robert! Recovered data from a 1994 disk that was on its last leg. Quick turn around, great communication and also had some wonderful chats. All the data was recovered as I desired. I chose Kotar since I didn't want to work with online services mailing the disk and losing it in the mail or causing more damage to it. read more

I have all but given up on trying to retrieve my family's pictures; from our wedding, to the birth of our two children. The external hard drive that it was saved on was checked by GeekSquad at Best Buy, and they said it was hopeless. They took it out of its shell and just returned the hard drive by itself. I brought it to Kotar Data Recovery and they were able to recover every single byte on that hard drive. They were very fast replying to my questions, and extremely accurate on their ETAs. Their price was worth every single penny as the files they recovered for me was priceless. read more

I had an external drive that was "unrecoverable" and Best Buy did not provide any hope. It took a long time to make a decision, but I was happy to find a local business to assist. Kotar Data Recovery was able to do a complete recovery of important personal files and pictures, and I am 100% satisfied with their business and customer service. Thank you! read more

One of my RAID arrays failed and I learned a valuable lesson in keeping copies of data in multiple locations. Contacted Kotar Data Recovery and, with some of their knowledge, guidance and searching, I was able to copy my data off my RAID array. I was ready to bring it in if I wasn't able to recover my RAID array myself, but serendipity was on my side. While I don't hope to have a more difficult set of problems to need solving, I will definitely bring the next set of problems to Kotar. It's definitely worth it to have knowledgable people on your team. Someday, I'll repay them for their kindness and generosity in sharing enough knowledge with me to DIY myself through this data crisis. Until then, 5 stars from me and a recommendation for anyone having data troubles to reach out to Kotar. read more