We offer a free 48-hour diagnostic, we agree upon a fixed cost for the data recovery before we start working on your device, and you don't have to pay anything at all on most data recoveries that fail. We serve both Oldham and the rest of the Greater Manchester region.
It takes approximately 25 minutes and 7 miles to travel from Oldham to our bench — simply drop it by when passing through or send it via post.
Chadderton, Royton and Shaw are all within the scope of our coverage as part of the larger Greater Manchester area.
Oldham is roughly seven miles north-east of us, travelling down the A62 and onto the M60 motorway — and about twenty-five minutes away during non-peak hours. Most customers choose to drop off their items while passing by instead of sending them via post.
Engineering and light manufacturing along with a large public sector and a significant education and health care workforce are the primary drivers of the local economy in Oldham. This creates a specific combination of computers/devices that we see at our recovery centre such as practice and clinic machines used by healthcare professionals; school and college server computers; and shop floor computers/workstations from the industrial parks around Chadderton. Both the healthcare and education sectors have data protection obligations which require that a portion of our Oldham customers have a signed data processing agreement to protect their data.
Covering Chadderton, Royton, and Shaw & surrounding area.
Each town has its own unique computer/device problem sets due to the nature of the local economies which dictate what is stored on devices. The economy in Oldham consists of engineering and light manufacturing along with a very significant public sector and a large education and health care workforce — therefore the types of computers/devices that we receive in our recovery centre consist of practice and clinic equipment used by health care workers; school and college server computers; and shop-floor computers/workstations from the various industrial parks surrounding Chadderton.
Both the education and health care sectors require companies to enter into a signed data processing agreement. Therefore, a percentage of our customers in Oldham will fall within the scope of this requirement.
There are two important functional reasons why. It helps tell us what to expect once an item has arrived at our location and allows us to shorten the diagnostic time. And when we call you to determine how to proceed with recovering your drive, the questions we ask are related to your situation versus reading from a script — a production line computer and a family laptop, although they have the same exact hard drive installed, are not going to be similar conversations.
Regardless of whether the job is walked in or sent via a courier service, the steps are the same.
Send to Peter House, Oxford Street, Manchester M1 5AN; Monday to Friday between 9am & 5:30pm — alternatively you can post it insured from Oldham. Remove your hard drive or SSD when sending as we cannot receive whole laptops/desktop systems.
The fault type will be identified — mechanical, electronic, firmware or logical — so the route, pricing and probability of recovery can be determined.
There is one price quoted prior to the job being worked on, which doesn’t change once accepted. If software would do the job, or no recovery is possible, then that will be communicated to you instead.
We image read-only, rebuild from a copy, verify by opening files rather than counting them, and send it back on new media with free shipping to Oldham.
Everyone loses when you waste time going to see an expert unnecessarily.
Phones and tablets. This is not something we take on; modern mobile devices have such sophisticated encryption schemes to protect your data that attempting to recover information via third parties is extremely difficult, so if images are what matter to you, realistically using iCloud, Google Photos or a backup is the most likely solution, as opposed to a lab.
Soldered Mac storage on a dead board. The flash is soldered onto T2 and Apple Silicon systems along with being encrypted by the security chip. Therefore, once that main board dies, there will be absolutely no one able to recover anything off that board – none of us, nor Apple, nor those who quote four figures for extracting at the board level.
Encryption without the key. BitLocker, FileVault and hardware encrypted drives are opened only through providing credentials. Before calling us check with your IT team; they may hold the escrowed keys — more often than you'd think.
Send the device in with an initial report of what has occurred to it. The diagnosis is at no charge and commits you to nothing, and the subsequent fee is written as a firm price prior to opening anything.
This is the only step that requires input from you and nothing else can happen until the device is on our bench. Package your item properly and include all the information we require about you and your item(s), then ship them to us. Then comes a no-cost diagnostic, followed by a written quote.
Posting it? Use a tracked and insured service. The value of what is on the drive far exceeds the cost of postage. Bringing it in? Weekdays from 9am to 5:30pm, and it still needs packing as described above for the journey.
Tell us about the item in question, tell us how it has been behaving lately, and let us know if there is anything you have done as far as troubleshooting goes so that our engineers may provide a realistic estimate of success and a probable cost range prior to sending your items off.
We’ll be in touch shortly. For anything urgent, call 0161 871 0788.
Yes — we also cover the areas of Chadderton, Royton, Shaw and Oldham. The distance is approximately 7 miles using the A62/M60 and takes around 25 minutes. Both drop off and insured post will begin our complimentary 48hr diagnosis.
From £250 + VAT for cards and USB media; from £300 + VAT for a single drive, laptop or Mac with removable storage; £550 + VAT flat rate for a Fusion Drive; and from £500 + VAT for RAID, NAS & servers — each quoted in writing after a complimentary 48-hour diagnostic.
A normal 48-hour turnaround is expected for the diagnostic. A single drive generally takes 3–4 working days from approval to completion. Longer lead-times are anticipated for array & donor part projects, and you receive the estimated timeline with your quote.
Remove your hard drive/SSD before shipping. We do not accept computers/laptops/desktops. Most computer shops within Oldham will be able to remove your hard drive in minutes. Exceptions include external drives which should remain enclosed.
In most cases you pay nothing. We provide a complimentary 48-hour diagnostic, and in the event that we cannot recover data from your device — again in most cases — there is no additional charge — except for forensic examination, CCTV & data destruction which are explicitly identified when providing an estimate.
Yes. Your data will remain here within the UK, your work will never be outsourced, our non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) are signed as standard for all commercial work, and working copies of your files are kept only for the retention period you decide, then destroyed.
We are just seven miles from you with a free diagnostic. Most jobs carry no charge at all unless we get your files back. We're close so walk-in or send it insured and we will begin in the same way.