This can be described as a process that has no unpleasant surprises; in other words, a well-defined process that begins when you receive your first quote and ends when your data is returned to you — a fixed written price agreed upon before any work commences, and nothing to pay on most jobs if it does fail. Each of these processes is outlined in detail below, from start to finish. It's exactly the same sequence used for our entire hard drive recovery service, regardless of the type of device being used.
The price is set prior to starting any work, and in most cases, payment will not occur until after your data is returned to you.
Same process for recovering data from a memory card, versus a twelve-disk storage array. The only difference is timescale.
Dropped off at Peter House on Oxford Street, or courier-delivered. You are informed that it arrived, along with an associated reference number. If there was suspected mechanical damage, the unit(s) are not powered up at this point.
The type of problem identified determines the path taken to recover your broken disk drive. That single identification of the type of failure – either mechanical, electrical, firmware or logical – dictates which machine and which pricing band the cost will fall into and the realistic odds of success.
A fixed price quotation is generated and you decide whether to go ahead with the quotation based upon that. One price, what we anticipate recovering from the disk drive and how many days we think it will take. Nothing is chargeable prior to generation of the fixed-price quotation. Therefore, at this stage, there is no obligation to proceed. This is when we will advise you of whether using software can recover your data, or alternatively if absolutely no recovery can occur.
Sufficient repair to allow us to read data from your damaged disk drive. If necessary, donor head assembly installation; board repair with the original ROM adaptives carried over; service area work; controller access in vendor mode. We need only enough repair to enable us to read data off your disk drive once, not to make it usable again.
We create an image of your failed disk drive on hardware specifically designed for accessing failing media. Since all subsequent attempts to restore data occur against this image of your disk drive – we cannot compromise anything that is recoverable.
File systems have been rebuilt. Arrays have been put back together again. Files were cut out where there was no longer a file system. The recovered data was opened up in its application as opposed to just counting it; then it is shipped back to you on new media with free shipping.
Regardless of what kind of equipment you use, regardless of how your disk went bad, and regardless of who is footing the bill for our services.
Reasonable time frames rather than promises no one can keep.
Normally the diagnosis should take less than 48 hours. It can be same day for an emergency project that is dropped in early. A logical recovery of your data on a healthy piece of hardware may be completed within a day or two of your approval. There are no imaging bottlenecks since the drive reads properly.
Work on physical equipment is limited by the pace the hardware allows. Finding an exact donor match for your drive may require time and patience. In addition, imaging a deteriorating surface may require multiple sessions over several days. This is done in graduated passes while allowing the drive to rest between each pass. Reconstructing arrays requires that all members are completely imaged prior to beginning the reconstruction process.
The priority service puts your order at the top of our queue, which allows us to read the directories you need first. Unfortunately, we cannot use priority service to speed up data recovery from a failing drive. We also would never offer the priority service if there was no benefit to doing so; instead, we would simply let you know that it won’t make a difference.
Compare ours or anyone else's.
£250 +VAT cards & USB media · £300 +VAT single drives, SSDs, laptops, PCs, external hard drives, Macs with removable storage · £550 +VAT flat rate for Fusion Drive Macs · from £500 +VAT RAID, NAS, servers, database recovery · £800 +VAT flat rate for BitLocker · £400 +VAT flat rate for CCTV · from £800 +VAT virtual machines & forensic services · from £1,250 +VAT enterprise SAN.
The majority of our work will cost no money if the job does not go well. The deposit required to do physical drive-level work is 50% as it covers both parts and labour. The remainder of the payment is made after successful completion. We charge in full for forensic examination, CCTV, and data destruction. This is because regardless of the results of the service, there is still a service provided — and we tell you that upfront prior to your committing yourself, versus in fine print later.
Get an immediate estimate by visiting our website or call us to discuss it first. Either way, you will get a detailed price before anything occurs.