Fault found first · price quoted after
First the fault, then the figure. Never in reverse.
Answer two questions and you have a probable cause, the one action to avoid, and a rough idea of bench time. The form below comes next. The assessment costs nothing once your device reaches the lab, and whatever figure goes into writing is what you are charged.
Describe the fault to an engineer
0800 6890668
Answer two, and see where it points.
How a job is handled →Which device has failed?
Choose whichever is closest.
Two questions, a plain answer, and one step worth taking while the device is still in your hands. This is not the free diagnosis, which needs an engineer and the hardware in front of them on a bench. Think of it as the guidance you would get by telephone, available at three in the morning.
Now the particulars.
What happens at our end.
You hear back within a working day
An engineer reads what you send, not an automated script. Back comes a candid first view: the realistic odds, what to leave untouched, and where to post the device.
Assessed on the bench Free
Your device receives its own case number, then goes onto the bench so we can establish the true fault and how much of the surface still reads.
One price, then you decide
The quote comes to you in writing. Approve it and the bench work starts; decline it and the device is returned. The assessment is free in both cases, and we do not haggle over that.
Filling in the paperwork.
Rather print a PDF? →Anything typed into these boxes flows through to the printed version. If you would sooner work in pen, Download the PDF and fill it in by hand. Both routes work, so long as a copy goes in the parcel.
Getting the parcel ready.
Run through this before sealing
- Note every password: BitLocker recovery keys, FileVault, Windows sign-ins — all on the shipping form. Encryption does not care who holds the drive; without the key we are shut out as well.
- Name what you need most: say which folders matter and those are the ones verified first.
- Externals travel assembled: the cables are not needed. Inside a WD My Passport the bridge board and the disk are a matched pair.
- Keep the power supply at home unless we ask for it, and if a part has broken off, send the fragments with the drive instead of binning them.
Worth repeating: whatever the checker told you, do not connect the device again for one final look. A large share of the avoidable damage arriving on the bench started with precisely that.
The things people most want to know, answered.
Can the checker stand in for the free diagnosis?
It cannot, and the difference is worth knowing. Your quote rests on the free diagnosis: the device on a bench, an engineer working through it, and the actual fault established. The checker only takes the symptoms you have typed and suggests where the trouble probably lies. One is a signpost; the other is the finding.
Data recovery: what does it cost?
What you are sending decides the opening band, and the checker will name yours. A memory card or a USB stick starts at £250 + VAT; a lone drive at £300 + VAT; anything involving a DVR or comparable recorder at £400 + VAT; and a job built from two or more disks at £500 + VAT. Further detail sits on the pricing page. Once the free assessment is done, that band narrows to one written figure.
Which jobs carry no recovery, no fee?
No recovery, no fee applies to every job but three: forensic instructions, embedded recorder work, and repairs needing donor components fitted inside the drive. Those three take a 50% deposit, because the bench hours and the parts go in whether or not they succeed. A drive another company has already opened is quoted on its own after inspection.
How quickly do you reply?
Within a working day, and often within half an hour of the enquiry landing. Messages left outside office hours wait a little longer. Once the device is with us, a single-drive diagnosis is normally finished the day it arrives.
Two minutes now, one figure back.
Checker, form, parcel, post office. Everything after that is your decision, and the assessment costs you nothing either way.