You shouldn't be left wondering what it's going to cost when a drive fails. All faults are diagnosed within 48 hours at no charge, there is one fixed figure put in writing prior to opening anything, and in the majority of cases you don't have to pay if the files aren't recovered. We service hard disks, SSDs, RAID arrays, NAS devices and memory cards — all from our Oxford Street office, by the engineers who answer the phones.
The vast majority of laboratories will give you a quote once they've got your drive sitting on their bench. Instead we'll provide the pricing upfront so you know how much it might cost you to recover your files before you even think about packing your drive. Each of these prices is a flat fee plus VAT, confirmed in writing at the time of diagnosis and won't alter regardless of the quantity or quality of your data; there is no percentage of the data recovered, no hourly rate and no additional surcharge if the job turns out to be particularly tricky.
One thing that is not on the list. If you've had Apple storage soldered onto the logic board and the machine no longer boots up — T2/Apple Silicon machines — then we can't put a price on it, as there isn't a method. This is because the encryption keys are embedded into the security chip on the logic board and therefore cannot be transferred to another machine. You'll get this information from us at your free diagnostic stage, not after receiving an invoice. More on Mac storage →
Each of the three examples below is real customer work, with identifiable detail removed. The final example has been included intentionally — a laboratory that never publishes a job below a 100% success rate is telling you something about the rest of its week.
Standard maintenance, disks pulled and reseated, but no record was taken of which bay each disk originated from. Not one single member of the array had physically failed — it was just that the controller couldn’t build an array that had lost track of the original bay ordering. There are approximately 620 billion trillion ways to arrange twenty-four disks, so trying every possible combination of disks was never a viable option, and attempting to rebuild the array on live hardware always risked the controller writing new metadata over the evidence required to solve it. As such the correct bay ordering was determined from the data contained on read-only copies of each disk, and thus rebuilt outside the box that originally experienced this problem.
A portable device that wasn't recognised any more was opened up on the assumption that a bare drive can be read on any machine, as most can. My Passport drives are encrypted automatically when they're shipped out, regardless of whether a user actually created a password. The encryption key for the storage unit resides on the small USB bridge chip located inside the outer housing of the drive instead of on the physical media. Since the outer housing is the actual drive and had already been disposed of, recovery was done using a matching bridge and carefully reading beyond the damaged areas.
The card was completely fine electrically – no controller issues. No bad blocks. Nothing wrong with it. And that makes it a much harder conversation to have, not an easier one. Simply deleting a file flags the space where the file used to be as available for use again. And if someone quick-formats the card they’re going to rewrite the index and it’ll likely come back just like it did before. When you overwrite something physically, you’re putting new data into the same exact location that previously held old data. There’s no way to recover what was originally stored in those locations. We cloned it through a write blocker and carved it by file signature. All of the areas of the original card that the new video didn’t land on returned at full quality. All other areas were identified but not hidden or glossed over.
These items do not assist us in selling anything. These are here because all four come up on the phone almost every week. Knowing the response to these questions ahead of time will save someone a trip to see us.
If you can still access your files on the drive, copy them somewhere else and keep your money. There is no value added by sending your drive to us. Call us and we’ll tell you exactly that at no cost and without trying to convince you otherwise.
There is no one that can break through the current versions of ransomware. Anybody who says they can decrypt your files is likely either paying the ransom for you or simply guessing. Realistically, recovering your data is all about everything that the encryption process missed, such as shadow copies that were left intact by the encryption program; original data that exists in free space; and any computers or volumes that weren't affected when the encryption process was shut down.
A TRIM command allows the controller to delete those specific sectors on an SSD within minutes. Once deleted, there isn't a single tool known today that can restore information that has been truly deleted. The identical deletion from a mechanical hard disk, however, can remain untouched for months. Which type of device you're using determines whether we should start trying to recover or not, and we'll let you know which it is before you decide to try.
One quote written in ink prior to doing any work. Not based on percentages of recovered items. Not based on hourly rates. And certainly not for researching your problem. On most occasions, if we cannot recover your data you won't receive an invoice. If the actual problem is determined to be different from what was originally assumed, you'll receive a phone call rather than receiving an additional large bill.
No charge for service occurs unless you've given us your approval for charges via a written agreement prior to proceeding past Phase 3. Phases 1 and 2 incur no costs and commit you to nothing.
Peter House, Oxford Street, Manchester M1 5AN, Mon–Fri 9am–5:30pm — only a few minutes’ walk from Oxford Road station. Walkable distance from Piccadilly. Or post it, insured, from anywhere in the UK. A bare drive will travel much better than the machine around it.
Mechanical, electronic, firmware or logical. That one call gives us an idea of how we are going to proceed, the price for doing this work, and an estimate of our success rate; therefore we do this correctly instead of quickly. There is no charge and no obligation to continue with the recovery.
You see all the figures, the odds and what we expect to recover before a single screw is removed. If you say no to proceeding, the device is returned at no cost to you. Nothing happens without your go-ahead.
We will never touch or harm your original. We are going to create an exact duplicate of your drive. Once we have created the duplicate, we will do all our work on that duplicate. The reason for doing this is to protect anything left on your original disk in case something goes wrong during the recovery.
We do not list files to be viewed later — we open them in the software that created them. Any file which we cannot open is named rather than buried. Your files come back on a fresh piece of equipment with shipping costs paid by us, with your original alongside — or the original is destroyed with a certificate if you would rather.
Disk drives from laptops and memory cards from cameras up to twenty-four-bay arrays in a server room. The same rules apply for different types of hardware; take images before touching anything and do everything based on copies. Deleted the pictures rather than lost the disk drive? Begin here: how to recover deleted photos.
We are based in Peter House on Oxford Street, which is right in the heart of the city, just a few minutes from Oxford Road station, within walking distance of Piccadilly, and easy to get to if you are driving as it is inside the M60. All physical work on drives is done internally by our qualified engineers and all data analysis is done in house. Therefore, no data leaves the country or goes to an external laboratory.
This puts clients across Greater Manchester, including Salford, Stockport, Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale, Bury, and Wigan within an hour of us. Further afield than this we undertake work from clients in Lancashire via Preston, Chorley, Blackburn, and Burnley; Merseyside via Liverpool and the Wirral; and Cheshire via Warrington, Chester, and Macclesfield.
Work from further afield can be sent to us by insured post, and we cover the return postage. As such, we receive many jobs at our premises each week arriving by courier as opposed to being delivered by hand. How postal recovery works →
If you have been searching data recovery near me while in the Greater Manchester region, then this is the local option. It has a genuine street address on Oxford Street, where all data recovery work is performed on our premises, so your drive does not need to be sent to a remote laboratory hundreds of miles away.
Likewise the narrower search types. Hard drive recovery near me, SSD recovery, RAID recovery and memory card recovery all land in the same building and on the same bench. Data recovery near me →
Prices start here at £250 ex VAT for logical and flash work and £300 for physical faults, with arrays from £500. There are two flat rates for Fusion Drives and encrypted media. The full cost breakdown explains what increases your costs and why.
If a laboratory will not give you a fixed price in writing before opening the case, ask them why. FAQ and pricing →
The blog is where the longer answers live. The following are the six most read.
One free written diagnostic within 48 hours. One fixed price for the work, prior to opening your device. On most jobs there is no charge if the recovery fails. Two decades as Manchester's data recovery specialists, within walking distance.