Devices · notebooks and towers
Nine out of ten times it is the screen, main board or charging circuit that has failed, leaving the disk untouched. Occasionally the disk itself fails, and that is a completely different job. In both cases the disk is what we need, so the disk is what you send: an inspection is free of charge, a single drive is £300 + VAT, and this price is agreed in writing before any chargeable work begins.
An engineer answers, and looking is free
0800 6890668
| What you are seeing | What is likely wrong | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| SMART Hard Disk Error, Hard Disk 1 (HP 301) | SMART has indicated that the hard drive is failing, so the BIOS will not allow you to boot from it | Take it seriously. Image the disk today |
| HP: Boot Device Not Found (3F0) | The BIOS can see nothing to boot | A loose connector, or a failed disk |
| Dell: Error Code 2000-0142 | ePSA has identified a bad disk, and the heads are usually the cause | Never run the disk through the test again after it has failed |
| Dell: Error Code 2000-0146 | It has collected errors in its log over time | This started long before today |
| Lenovo 2100 — BIOS cannot detect HDD0 (Main HDD) | No answer is coming from that channel: either the cable or the disk | Image it before anybody starts pulling cables |
| A disk read error occurred — Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart | The boot sector won't read, and possibly a good deal more besides | Another restart changes nothing |
| Reboot and Select proper Boot Device | The BIOS has nothing to start from | Find the fault before anyone reinstalls |
A case number is assigned to your device when we receive it. An engineer then finds the real fault (free) before anything else occurs; you will be advised clearly of what will be returned and what will not, along with a single written price. Charges cannot begin until you have read this and accepted.
We take the drive only: you send us that one by post, and everything else stays with you. Soldered flash storage is fixed to the board, so there is nothing to unplug, and we don't accept this type of hardware. If you are unsure which type you have, please ring us first.
A drive with a genuine failure is added to the standard HDD or SSD queue. If the machine is finished and the drive is good, all that remains is the imaging.
We will restore full user profiles onto new media (documents, desktop, email stores) in their original folder structures, with the return postage on us. Billing waits on your approval of the file list, never the other way round.
You look at the file list first and make a decision about what to do. We will never invoice anything until you have said yes, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. All of the information that we recover will be put on new media purchased by us specifically for this job, and our company pays the cost of postage back to you. The case stays open on the bench until you tell us the files open on your own machine.
What comes in from around here: encrypted work laptops from the offices in Green Park and from Thames Valley Park in Earley; machines reissued and re-imaged as part of the telecoms changes at Newbury; and the accounts PC of a sole trader in Tilehurst which also functions as the family computer. One thing is common to all of them: when the maker's own diagnostic names the disk, the problem usually lies with that disk. After that it is ordinary drive work, similar to that set out on the hard drive and SSD pages.
The laptop was finished, but the hard drive was only clicking. Heads from a matching donor were fitted, an image pass was run slowly on purpose, and after 3 days she had all the files back: the marks, the reports and five years of lesson plans.
Send the disk on its own: get a quote first, then post just the drive. That way the postage is lower and it travels better than the whole laptop would. Two minutes with a screwdriver will remove it, and any local computer shop should be able to oblige. We do not take soldered flash storage in. If you're not sure which type your drive is, please ring us before posting.
Nearly all of them. Displays, mainboards and charging circuits cause far more laptop failures than disks do, and imaging a good hard disk taken from a laptop that will never turn on again is among the fastest jobs here, and probably the least expensive.
Only when the key has gone. An encrypted volume is perfectly ordinary work here; several go through in a normal week. If you include your password (or the 48-digit recovery key) in the package, all will be well; otherwise the volume will remain locked as intended. So find your key before posting anything.
A lot of the time. An installation only overwrites a portion of the drive, and everything else remains intact until something else is written. Therefore, turn off the computer, leave it alone and do not use it again.
There is no charge for the look. You then receive a list of the files that opened, those that did not, and a fixed amount to complete the job. Keep it switched off until you have received that in writing.