Following hard drive failure on a virtually new PC (months old), no local shops or known engineers were able to access data that was crucial to a PhD thesis. R3 were enlisted to see what, if anything, could be recovered. Initial results indicated that data was available, though it appeared that the recoverable data did not match the stated available data. A second run, however, indicated that all the critical data could be recovered, and R3 were given the go-ahead to do a full recovery (entailing actual data recovery and supply to ourselves of a flash drive containing that data). This enabled the student to complete (and subsequently be awarded) her PhD.