The same symptoms hide vastly different defects: two drives which are both "not detected" may require two hours of logical work for one, and a week of bench mechanics on the other. The cost will reflect the defect; the defect will only reveal itself through examination, therefore a firm price given prior to anyone examining your device is marketing and not diagnosis. We follow the honest process, with a free diagnostic first, followed by a single fixed quote for you to either accept or decline.
The diagnostic determines where in the ladder you are: logical (deletion or corruption with a healthy piece of hardware); electronic (a dead PCB or USB bridge); firmware; or mechanical (heads and motors, bench territory). Each step up in the ladder requires additional components, hours on the bench, and specialist tooling. That's what drives cost (not your postcode or panic).
Wider UK pricing: logical work on deleted data or a corrupted file system (on good disks) will typically be in the low hundreds. The mid hundreds tend to buy electronic and firmware repairs. Mechanical recoveries requiring donor parts and bench time may cost from the mid hundreds up towards four figures. Multi-disk RAID, NAS and server cases sit above that, depending upon how many disks are involved and the level of difficulty. One example for an actual price from our own list would be the fixed charge of £400 + VAT to recover data from CCTV and DVR recorder drives. This is considered forensic-class work, and payment is required upfront, prior to beginning this type of service.
Use these price ranges as a guide to get your bearings, not to decide how much to allocate: the full value of your free diagnostic is an amount that belongs to your drive and your fault, prior to spending any money. Once we have given you a fixed quote, the risk moves our way: if the job turns out to be nastier than anticipated, you will pay based upon the original price you approved.
The same tactics are being used in every area of this business: the low cost headline ('recovery from £49!') that multiplies once an 'assessment' is done; the charge for doing an assessment, kept regardless of whether anything comes back or not; a standard service quietly slowed down so that you need to pay extra for the express version; and loose enough terms on the success clause that recovering one single unreadable file will result in your paying the full invoice.
Ask three things. Is the free diagnostic free if you walk away, with the device returned? Are quoted prices fixed once they're given to you? What counts as success: do you verify recovered files before payment? A serious lab will answer all these questions without flinching. Here's how we state our own terms clearly: on logical recoveries, in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Drives that have physical damage, electronic damage, water or fire damage require invasive work, so 50% of the quote must be paid upfront. Forensic-class jobs are fully prepaid, upfront in full. 'Recover' always means the data you actually needed, verified, never a technicality.
Switch a failing drive off as soon as you can: the first click is the cheap moment to switch it off, however a week of retries is the expensive one. Do not keep running various tools against failing drives, every time an attempt is made by some form of software against failing hardware there will be additional hours added to the professional recovery job that follows, and it is these types of repeated DIY efforts that result in what could have been a relatively modest recovery becoming an expensive one. And use the post: tracked postage costs just pounds, while on-site callouts will cost multiples of it.
Start by going through the free online diagnostic, or look at the appropriate device page before that: hard drives, SSDs, external drives, NAS and RAID.
Do not consider any number except a fixed quote for the fault that you actually have. The three steps to protect yourself: free diagnostic, fixed price in writing, and on logical work, only paying if your data is recovered. If an offer does not include all three of these elements then it is worth skipping.
We offer a free diagnostic on arrival, one fixed quote, and on logical faults, in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Please begin online or call us using our freephone number.