In short: from 7 to 10 October 2026, Belgium Data Recovery attended ACE Lab TechWeek in Alicante, the annual conference run by the company behind the PC-3000 range of data recovery tools. The programme covered new techniques for SSDs, hard drives, RAID arrays and memory cards and, for the first time, artificial intelligence and its impact on our work and on the price of storage. Below is what we took away, and a preview of the in-depth articles to follow.
A conference we attend every year
ACE Lab makes the PC-3000 range, the hardware and software that professional recovery labs around the world rely on to get data back from failed drives. Each year the company brings engineers together for several days of talks and hands-on workshops.
We have been attending regularly since 2018: Prague, Malaga twice, Dubrovnik, and this year Alicante. Our attendance certificates are on our ACE Lab certifications page.
Why go back every year? Because storage changes fast: new SSD controllers, new memory chips and new firmware appear every year. The workshops always deliver a lot of practical detail. Talking to colleagues matters just as much: once again, more than a hundred engineers from around forty countries took part. We always come home with new knowledge and new ideas to put to work in the lab.
The 2026 themes
ACE Lab summed up the week in eight themes:
- new SSD tools;
- new solutions for recent SSDs and for models already supported;
- recovering SSD partitions after the operating system has been reinstalled;
- tips for more efficient hard drive recovery;
- new adapters and features for flash memory;
- the internal structure of monoliths (microSD cards, tiny USB flash drives);
- why marketing matters in data recovery;
- artificial intelligence: opportunities and risks.
Our articles from the conference
Several workshops gave us material for practical articles, written for anyone dealing with a failed device. They will appear over the coming weeks in our knowledge hub:
- Formatted SSD or reinstalled Windows: can the data still be recovered?
Why a formatted SSD is not necessarily empty, and what decides your chances. - Kingston A400, Crucial BX500 or ADATA SU630 not detected: what now?
The Silicon Motion SM2259XT controller found in many budget SSDs. - Seagate hard drive not detected or stuck in BSY (busy) state: explained
A drive that spins up but no longer shows up. - Failed RAID or NAS: why you should not start a rebuild
The mistakes that turn a recoverable failure into permanent loss. - Broken microSD card or cracked USB stick: can the data be saved?
What a monolith is, and what can still be recovered. - Data recovery in 2026: fake drives, refurbished drives and risky AI advice
What the labs at the conference are seeing this year.
New in 2026: artificial intelligence
For the first time, AI had its own place on the programme, from several angles:
- in the lab: what AI can bring to recovery work, and where its limits are;
- on the customer side: more and more people ask an AI what to do with a failed drive before they call anyone, and that advice is not always safe;
- on prices: demand for memory for AI weighs on the market, and SSD and hard drive prices have risen sharply. As a result, more second-hand, refurbished and even counterfeit drives are in circulation, and more of them fail.
We will cover this in detail in a dedicated article.
What it means for you
The week's conclusion was clear: drives are getting more expensive and larger, and their internal design and firmware more complex. Labs see more difficult cases, and each one takes longer. For a lab, that means continuous training, which is exactly why we keep going back.
For you, the advice does not change. If a drive, SSD or card fails, stop using it, do not run repair tools or format it, and get advice first. Diagnosis is free and we work on a No Cure No Pay basis: if we cannot recover your data, you pay nothing.
Frequently asked questions
01What is ACE Lab TechWeek?
ACE Lab's annual conference. ACE Lab makes the PC-3000 range, and the event brings together data recovery and digital forensics engineers from around the world for talks and hands-on workshops.
02How long has Belgium Data Recovery been attending?
Regularly since 2018. The attendance certificates are on our ACE Lab certifications page.
03Why should that matter to me as a customer?
SSDs, memory cards and hard drives change every year. A lab that keeps training knows the new controllers, the new failure types and the mistakes to avoid.
04Where can I find the full articles?
In our knowledge hub and in the list above.
