Free check · then a fixed price
Find the fault first. Then talk about money.
Two questions is all it takes. You get a probable cause, one clear warning about what not to do, and a rough sense of the bench time involved. The form sits underneath. Once the device is at the lab an engineer assesses it for nothing, and the number we put in writing is the number you pay.
Describe the symptoms to an engineer
0800 6890668
Two taps, and a likely cause.
Every step, in order →What are we looking at?
Pick whatever is closest.
Two taps, a plain answer, and one action worth taking before you do anything else. Nothing like the free diagnosis, mind: that one needs the drive on a bench with an engineer over it. Picture the answer you would get by ringing us, only this one is awake at three in the morning.
The details, then.
What happens after that.
An answer within one working day
An engineer reads what you send; no software sorts it into a bucket. Back comes a frank first view: the honest odds, what to leave alone, and where to post it.
On the bench, fault found Free
Your device is booked in under a case number of its own and goes on the bench, where we name the real fault and work out how much of the surface, or the flash, can still be read.
The figure, then your call
The quote arrives in writing. Give us the go-ahead and the job starts; turn it down and the device is posted back at our cost. Either way the assessment was free, and no small print anywhere takes that back.
The paperwork, done here.
Prefer it printed? →Anything you type here shows up on the printed sheet as well. Prefer paper and a biro? Download the PDF and fill that in instead. Both are fine, as long as one copy rides inside the parcel.
Packing the parcel.
Run through this before it leaves
- Note down every password: Windows logins, FileVault, BitLocker recovery keys — put them on the shipping form. A lab gets no special pass through encryption; without the key we are shut out just as you are.
- Name what you cannot lose: tell us those folders and they are the first ones we go looking for.
- Externals come whole: leave the cables at home. A WD My Passport pairs its bridge board to that one disk, so the two halves have to arrive together.
- Keep the power brick unless we ask for it. If something has snapped off or worked loose, put the pieces in a bag and send them with the drive — do not throw them away.
Saying it again: whatever the checker told you, resist plugging the device in for one more try. A good share of the harm we see on the bench started with exactly that last look.
What people want to know before posting.
Does the checker count as a real diagnosis?
No, and the difference is worth knowing. A quote follows the free diagnosis: your hardware on the bench, an engineer taking it stage by stage, the actual fault named. The checker only reads back the boxes you ticked and suggests a likely cause. One points the way; the other is what we found.
What will data recovery cost me?
Which band you land in depends on the device, and the checker will tell you which. A card or a pen drive opens at £250 + VAT. For one drive it is £300 + VAT. Recorders — a DVR or similar — sit at £400 + VAT, and anything with two disks or more begins at £500 + VAT. The pricing page has the full breakdown. After the free assessment, that band becomes one written figure.
Is it really no recovery, no fee?
No files back, no bill: that holds for most jobs. Where it does not, you are told before you commit to anything — mostly drives that have taken mechanical or electrical harm, plus devices another firm has already had open.
When will I hear back from you?
Within one working day, and often inside half an hour of your message landing. Anything arriving after hours is answered the next morning. With the drive on our bench, a single-disk diagnosis is normally finished inside 48 hours.
Two minutes now, one figure back.
Checker, form, parcel, post office. After that the decision is yours, and looking at the device will have cost you nothing.