Looking costs nothing · one fixed figure after
A data recovery quote, London. The fault first. Then one written price, and it does not move.
Two questions, and back come a likely cause, the price band you are in, and the one thing not worth trying tonight. The form itself sits further down this page. An engineer at the intake lab then goes over the device for nothing, and the figure that follows in writing is what you pay — with nothing added to it.
Put it to an engineer — the first look costs nothing
0203 0868633
Two questions, and a likely cause.
The order of the job →What is yours stored on?
Whichever comes closest will do.
Two taps and you get a plain answer, plus the one action worth taking before any other. A diagnosis it is not; for that the drive has to be in an engineer's hands. Read it as the answer the telephone would give at three in the morning, when the telephone is not there to give it.
Now the detail.
What happens after you send it.
An answer inside a working day
A person reads what you write; nothing is sorted by script. Back comes a straight first view of what is likely, one instruction about what not to touch meanwhile, and an address to post to. While the desk is staffed half an hour is usual, and anything arriving overnight is answered after nine the next morning.
The bench names the fault Free
A case number goes on every device and the device goes onto a bench. That is where the fault is actually named, next to a survey of how much of the platters, or how much of the flash, still reads. Allow about 48 hours for one disk; several take longer, and you are told which at booking-in.
The figure, and your decision
The figure arrives in writing, the findings alongside it. Accept it and work begins. Decline and the device travels home with the postage at our end. Nothing is owed for the diagnosis in either case, and nothing further down the page quietly undoes that.
Where it goes, and what goes with it.
Prefer it on paper? →Whatever you type here appears on the printed sheet too. Would you rather work on paper? Download the PDF, complete it in pen, and observe the same rule: a copy rides in the box next to the device.
Getting it packed.
Run through this before taping it
- Put every password on the form: the Windows sign-in, any FileVault password, that 48-digit BitLocker key. Encryption has no side door for a laboratory either — keep a key to yourself and the bench halts at the point you halted.
- Name whatever you cannot do without: list those folders and the copying begins there.
- A portable drive should arrive whole: its cable can stay behind. The bridge board in a WD My Passport is keyed to one disk only, so the two of them have to travel together.
- Keep hold of the mains adaptor unless an engineer asks you for it. Any piece that has come away goes into the bag alongside. Throw nothing out.
Worth saying twice: whatever the checker said, leave the thing switched off with the plug out. A great deal of the work on this bench was made harder by one further attempt to see whether today might be different.
The questions that come up first.
Is the checker actually a diagnosis?
It is not. What the checker does is infer from the boxes you ticked. A diagnosis means your hardware in an engineer's hands at the bench, possibilities ruled out one by one until the fault has a name — and only that sets a price. Take the checker's word on what to leave alone tonight; take the bench's word on cost.
How much will it be?
A pen drive or a memory card is £250 + VAT. One hard disk, or one SSD, is £300 + VAT; £400 + VAT covers a DVR or recorder. Once a second disk is involved — NAS, server, RAID set — the entry point moves to £500 + VAT. Which band applies follows from what arrives, and the checker names it while the device is still with you. The pricing page publishes all six, and the free diagnosis is what produces your one written figure.
Is no recovery, no fee genuinely true?
On most jobs, yes: nothing recovered means nothing to pay. Two kinds of work fall outside it — a device another lab has already opened, and hardware that has had an electrical or physical knock. If yours is one of those you are told at the outset, well before you agree to spend a penny.
How soon does an answer come?
Within one working day at the outside. Half an hour is usual while the desk is staffed, and anything sent overnight has a reply waiting after nine. The diagnosis is slower: reckon on about 48 hours once a single disk is on a bench.
A price inside two minutes.
Checker, form, parcel, bench — and the decision is yours, made with one figure in front of you and nothing to pay for the looking.