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ADR / Media and machines / Work that cannot wait

Urgent work · first onto the imager

Emergency data recovery, London. Tell us yours is urgent and it goes first: opened the day it lands, imaged ahead of the queue.

Here "urgent" refers to something that you are able to check for yourself. The parcel will be opened upon arrival and the specific issue named by the end of that day. Your drive will be at the imaging station prior to each of the other drives awaiting imaging. Urgent status does not influence any of the published price bands, so one drive remains priced at £300 + VAT, and array systems, NAS units and servers still start at £500 + VAT. A priority charge if applicable will be quoted separately within the single quote agreed upon. All distributors located within Park Royal who use a single server in their warehouse office to operate their entire business, all edit suites in Soho with a card that the machine will not mount, and all practices in Bromley that have to send out Friday's payroll need to call us first for a quote before posting it or delivering it in person to our Guildford intake lab, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm. We do not require an appointment. The same rules apply to all urgent jobs originating from London.

Only pay if we recover your data, on most jobs A free look first, then one figure in writing Media posted in from Croydon, Ealing and Camden

Put it to an engineer — the first look costs nothing
0203 0868633

Urgent jobs: what the symptom usually means.

Different fault? Try the finder →
What is going onThe usual reason for itWhere that leaves you
The server the entire firm relies on has stoppedEvery disk imaged before anything else is done, then the array put back together off those images; this is prioritised work every timeTelephone before you post it
A rebuild halted partway through and left alone sinceGood sound judgement: any additional retries at this point will use up more of whatever remainsLeave it switched off and call
There is a deadline date for thisPayroll, tribunal, dispatch date: tell us your deadline and we will work backwards from itTell us your deadline at the start
This contained the only copies of the family photosHome archives are scheduled exactly like company servers areYou get told straight either way
Filenames changing while you watchContain it, save what can be saved then recoverRemove the network lead and leave the power alone
Packing it and posting it: movement is what finishes off a damaged drive, so pack your unit into a solidly constructed container and fill any empty space with padding material. Get a quote first, by calling us or using the form, and once you receive your quote send your unit tracked and insured to our Guildford intake lab, or drop it off there yourself, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no appointment needed). We pay for the trip home. Would you like your packing materials reviewed prior to taping up your box? Please call first. All of this information is detailed within our guide to packing and posting.

What actually sets the timetable, and what does not.

Physical or logicalSound hardware with only a logical fault: frequently a day or two is all it takes. Swapping heads from a donor, or restoring an array from images, takes no less time here than it would anywhere else. But reading a surface faster than it will read is something that will never happen.
Capacity, and how the surfaces are holding upWhile a 4TB disk in good order takes the imager hours, the same capacity with every weak sector requested twice will take it days. Those two things together are the basis for timetables here.
Whether a donor exists to be foundGeneric items will not suffice. Any board or head stack must originate from a drive of the same model and family, utilising firmware from the same time frame. Once a priority job is received, the shelf will be opened specifically for it, ahead of the other jobs. If an individual disk is less common, we will have to locate one, and payment has never expedited our search process.
Whatever was already attemptedWhatever has been tried at somebody's desk arrives here along with the disk, whether that is simply turning the power back on one more time, launching another utility against the disk, or a rebuild that was pushed on past its own warnings. As long as a disk is unaltered (i.e., nobody has attempted to repair or rebuild it), it will leave sooner than one that has been worked on previously.

From the box arriving to your files going back.

01

Logged the day it lands, and the first look costs nothing Free

As soon as your parcel arrives here, an engineer assigns a case number that same day, prior to determining what has really failed, which is the first thing done and costs you nothing. In addition to a note of what can and cannot be recovered from your drive, you will receive at the same time the fixed, written price for restoring what can be recovered. You can accept this quote, or decline it, which will result in no further obligation on your part and nothing owed to us.

Nothing to pay for lookingA single figure, put in writingNothing owed at this stage
02

Tell us on the phone

A single sentence is all you need: trading has stopped, or this is the date I have to make. Making that call will book bench time, open a case number and put an urgent flag on your job, while you are still holding the parcel.

You say urgent when you ringBench time set aside for it
03

Onto the imager without a wait

Arrival day provides two items: the box opened and a name on the fault. After that point, we image in one continuous pass and in front of all other jobs queued. Call as many times as you want; the engineer who has your job will say how far we have got.

Opened the day it turns upImaged without a pause
04

Back to you once it checks out

Once the files you designated as top priority open properly and read back cleanly, your data will leave. It will go either via encrypted transfer or on new media bought specifically for the job and posted to you with our postage included.

The files you named checked firstHome by the fastest route there is
05

You see the file list before you pay

You will see what has been recovered as a list first, after which a bill exists. Accepting the list means that a bill will be issued. Rejecting the list means that a bill will not be issued, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. The recovered data travels from here back to you via new media purchased specifically for your project, with the cost of postage paid by us. Your case is not resolved (i.e., "closed") until you personally view the files on a computer of your own.

No charge until you accept the figureFresh media, supplied with the jobThe post home is ours

What arrives most often

  • Read speed writes the timetable; the bill has nothing to say about it. A multi-terabyte disk in good condition will leave the imager within a day, where one that has to retry weak sectors at a rate of two or three megabytes will occupy it for nearly a week. Whatever is next in line is scheduled based on when we finish this job.
  • Price buys position; it does not buy physics. You move up the list and we do not set it aside for anybody else. However, no amount of money will find a donor part that nobody stocks. No amount of money will cause a weak sector to read faster than it will.
  • If you have specified a deadline then the order in which your files are dealt with changes. The folders you have prioritised as most important will be dealt with and verified first. These folders will leave ahead of the rest of your files.
  • Unchanged disks leave first: when a disk arrives switched off and unaltered, with no utility run across it and no rebuild attempted, then the job will tend to be home days earlier than one where the disk has been changed in some way by someone at their workstation.

The five factors that influence our timeline are: which components failed; how many terabytes we need to process; what condition the surfaces of the disks are in; whether there is already a suitable donor unit on the shelf; and how many previous attempts were made before the box was sealed. None of these factors are influenced by the fact that you choose to pay for rush service. This is why this page posts its operational hours (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm) rather than placing a badge indicating that somebody may be working overnight. Regardless of whether it originates from London, Bromley, Croydon or somewhere in between, upon receipt, a parcel marked priority will begin processing immediately and continue through every staffed hour without break. Once we can stand behind a completion date, we will provide you with a confirmed completion date.

One job, followed all the way through.

LDN · ADR-2026-3353JOB LOGGED ✓

A Hackney haulier: no bookings Monday, taking them again Thursday

The call came on the Monday while the rebuild was still active, and the job was moved forward. First thing stated was: shut down power, and do not request anything else from the array. Next, each member received an image to itself and the reassembly process proceeded based on these images (and never based on the physical drives). The database came up whole upon completion, and by Thursday the firm was able to book work again.

The business taking bookings on day 4Pushed to the front

What helps, and what harms.

Do this much first

  • Call us first. Tell us that trading has stopped, or tell us your date.
  • Shut down the failed machine and let it be
  • Ensure the person responsible for signing off on the bill is contactable
  • Number each disk and label it with the bay it goes in, including those that were rejected.

What sets us back

  • Starting another rebuild while you are still trying to decide.
  • Believing anyone who guarantees your head swap will be complete by morning
  • Delaying your call until tomorrow, when calling today would book bench time.
  • Splitting the drives of one set between two different benches, ours and somebody else's.

Questions answered before you commit.

How quick is an urgent job in practice?

The failure decides. If the problem is purely logical and the mechanical parts appear normal, high-priority work is often done within forty-eight hours. Arrays take longer to process and any hard drive with failing heads also takes longer. Beyond that point, the imager dictates: the rate at which a worn sector releases what it contains depends upon whatever pace suits the sector, regardless of how much money is spent. Get an assessment first and a real date second, never the other way around.

Is anyone working here through the night?

Never, and any firm strongly implying that head swaps continue unattended once its building has emptied needs a closer look. Rush orders get only one benefit on this bench: you get your job placed at the front of the line and worked continuously throughout each staffed hour. These hours are Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm. Hours you can call and check beat a badge nobody can.

Can I have a finish date before it even gets to you?

No. A date given without a physical inspection is merely a guess dressed nicely. Where the failure is physical, it depends on surface performance as soon as imaging begins and on whether a compatible donor, with the same model and the same firmware generation, can even be found. Neither of those can be answered in a phone call. In their place stand three promises: you'll be at the front of the line; you'll receive an assessment the day your parcel arrives; and you'll receive a valid date as soon as one exists.

Is priority charged for?

Yes. Being first in line has a price. The cost will appear on your single quote, along with the figure for the recovery. In most cases, you only pay if we recover your data. Diagnosing your hard drive is always provided at no cost.

Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.

RAID and server jobs → Servers that refuse to come up → Disks taken out of a NAS box → Every device we take →

Nothing gets worse while the power is off.

It doesn't cost you anything for us to look at it. All we do is give you a breakdown of what opened and what did not, plus a single fixed price to complete, written down before you agree to let us continue. On most jobs, you only pay if we recover your data. Please don't turn on the drive until you get that breakdown.

0203 0868633

Get it assessed Sending it to Guildford