Identical symptoms conceal wildly different faults: two drives that both 'aren't detected' can be a two-hour logical job and a week of clean-room mechanics. The price follows the fault, and the fault only shows itself under examination — so a firm figure quoted before anyone has seen your device is marketing, not diagnosis. The honest sequence, and ours, is a free diagnostic first, then a single fixed quote to accept or decline.
The diagnostic settles which rung of the ladder you're on: logical (deletion or corruption while the hardware itself is healthy), electronic (a dead PCB or USB bridge), firmware, or mechanical (heads and motors — clean-room territory). Every rung upward adds parts, bench hours and specialist tooling, and that, not postcode or panic, is what moves the price.
Broad UK ranges: simple logical work (deleted files, corrupted file systems on healthy drives) tends to land in the low hundreds; the mid hundreds buy electronic and firmware repairs; mechanical recoveries needing donor parts and a clean room run from the mid hundreds towards four figures; and multi-drive RAID, NAS and server cases sit above that, priced by disk count and complexity. For one concrete anchor from our own list: CCTV and DVR recorder recoveries are a fixed £400 + VAT — forensic-class work, which is payable upfront.
Use those ranges to orient, not to budget — the entire value of a free diagnostic is a number that belongs to your drive and your fault before you've spent anything. A fixed quote also moves the risk our way: if the job proves nastier than assessed, the figure you approved is still the figure you pay.
The tricks repeat across the industry: the bargain headline ('recovery from £49!') that multiplies once an 'assessment' is done; assessment fees kept whether anything comes back or not; a standard service quietly slowed until the express tier looks essential; and success clauses written so loosely that recovering one unreadable file triggers the whole invoice.
Ask three things. Does the free diagnostic stay free if you walk away, with the device returned? Once given, is the quote fixed? And what exactly counts as success — are recovered files verified before payment? A serious lab answers all three without blinking. Our own terms, stated plainly: no fix, no fee applies to logical recoveries; drives with physical, electronic, water or fire damage need invasive work, so 50% of the quote is payable upfront; and forensic-class jobs are payable upfront in full. 'Fix' always means the data you actually needed, verified — never a technicality.
Switch a failing drive off early — the first click is the cheap moment, and a week of retries is the expensive one. Don't run tool after tool: each software pass over failing hardware adds hours to the professional job that follows, and stacked DIY attempts are how modest jobs become dear ones. And use the post: tracked postage costs pounds, while on-site callouts cost multiples of it.
Begin with the free online diagnostic, or read the relevant device page first: hard drives, SSDs, external drives, NAS and RAID.
Ignore every number that isn't a fixed quote for the fault you actually have. The sequence that protects you: free diagnostic, fixed price in writing, no fix no fee on logical work. An offer missing any of the three deserves a pass.
Free diagnostic on arrival, one fixed quote, no fix no fee on logical faults — start online or pick up the freephone.