Nobody extracts private keys from a hardware wallet that is doing its job — resisting exactly that is the entire product. What a recovery lab genuinely helps with is everything around the device.
Hardware wallets are built to resist extraction and they succeed. The recoverable material is usually a seed phrase backup, a wallet.dat file, or a keystore that was stored on a drive that has since failed.
The overwhelming majority of crypto losses are ordinary storage failures. A wallet.dat or keystore file sat on a laptop drive that has since died. A seed phrase was photographed or typed into a note and the phone or card holding it failed. A backup drive holding an encrypted wallet export stopped mounting. None of these are cryptographic problems — they are data recovery problems that happen to involve currency.
The genuinely difficult case is a forgotten password on an encrypted wallet file, and that is a different discipline with poor odds rather than a recovery job.
Where a drive has failed, it is imaged read-only and the file system rebuilt from the copy, exactly as with any other recovery. Wallet files have recognisable structures, so even where the file system is gone, a wallet.dat or keystore can often be carved out by signature from unallocated space — including copies deleted long ago that the user had forgotten making.
Deleted seed-phrase notes, screenshots of recovery sheets and old backup exports are frequently found the same way. In practice the recoverable material is usually something the owner did not realise still existed.
A Ledger, Trezor or similar keeps the private key inside a secure element designed to resist physical extraction, including decapping and side-channel attacks. If the device is lost or dead and you do not have the seed phrase, the funds are not reachable — that is the security model working as intended, not a gap a specialist can close.
Equally, an encrypted wallet file whose passphrase is forgotten cannot be opened by us. Brute-force services exist for that and are a different trade entirely; their odds depend wholly on how much of the password you remember.
Because this is storage work rather than anything exotic, normal prices apply — a single drive from £300 +VAT, a USB stick or card from £250 +VAT, after a free 48-hour diagnostic and a written quote. We do not take a percentage of recovered funds, and we would be wary of anyone who proposes to.
Send the media, never the seed phrase. If a recovery is successful you receive the files and nothing else leaves with them.
No, and any firm claiming otherwise should be treated with real suspicion. Ledger, Trezor and similar devices keep the private key in a secure element built to resist physical extraction. Without the seed phrase, the funds are unreachable — that is the security model working correctly.
Usually, yes. That is ordinary data recovery: the drive is imaged read-only and the file system rebuilt from the copy. Wallet files have recognisable structures, so they can often be carved out by signature even when the file system is gone — including deleted copies the owner forgot making.
Sometimes, if it was ever stored digitally. Photographs of recovery sheets, typed notes and old backup exports are all recoverable from failed media by the normal means. If it only ever existed on paper that is now lost, there is no technical route.
Never. Legitimate recovery is performed on your storage media, not on your seed. Anyone asking you to type or send the phrase itself is attempting theft, and the same applies to services asking for it “to verify ownership”.
Standard rates, because it is storage work: from £300 plus VAT for a drive and £250 plus VAT for a USB stick or card, after a free 48-hour diagnostic. We don’t take a percentage of recovered funds and would be cautious of anyone who does.