Free diagnosis · then one fixed price
The fault first. Then one price, in writing, that does not move.
Answer two questions and you get back a probable cause, the one move to avoid, and the price band you are heading for. The form itself is further down. After that an engineer looks at the device at the intake lab, charges nothing for looking, and whatever figure comes back in writing is the whole of what you pay.
An engineer answers, and looking is free
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Two questions, and a probable cause.
How every job runs →What is your data sitting on?
Pick whichever is nearest.
Two taps, and you have a plain answer plus the single action worth taking before any other. Nobody is diagnosing anything at this stage; that needs the drive itself on a bench, in front of somebody. Think of it as what the phone would tell you, available at three in the morning when the phone is not.
On to the detail.
What comes next once it is sent.
You hear back inside a working day
Your description goes to a person, not to a sorting script. What comes back is a candid first read on the odds, one instruction about what to leave well alone, and the address to post it to.
On the bench, the fault named Free
A case number is raised for every device, and the device goes straight to a bench. Naming the actual fault happens there, alongside the survey that says what proportion of the platters, or of the flash, is still legible.
Then the figure, and your decision
The figure reaches you in writing. Say yes and the bench begins; say no and it comes back to you, postage at our end. Neither answer puts you in debt for the diagnosis, and no clause further down reverses that.
The address, and what to enclose.
Would you rather have paper? →Whatever you type into this form appears on the printed sheet too. If pen and paper suits you better, Download the PDF and complete it that way. Either route is fine; the only rule is that a copy travels in the box.
Packing the box.
Run through this before you seal it
- Write every password down: BitLocker recovery keys, FileVault, the Windows login — all of it belongs on the shipping form. Encryption has no side entrance for a lab either. Withhold a key and this bench stops exactly where you stopped.
- Name what you cannot afford to lose: list those folders and copying starts with them.
- A portable drive comes as one piece: leave the cable at home. A WD My Passport carries a bridge board keyed to its own disk and no other, so the two have to reach us together.
- Hold on to the mains adaptor unless somebody here asks for it. Anything that has broken off or rattled loose goes in a bag and travels with the drive. Bin nothing.
This one bears repeating: leave the device off and out of the socket, whatever the checker said. A fair proportion of what lands on this bench was made worse by one last attempt to see whether it would work this time.
The questions that come first.
Does the checker really diagnose the fault?
No. One is a guess assembled from the boxes you ticked; the other is an engineer at a bench with your hardware in hand, narrowing the possibilities until what is wrong can be named. Only the second one sets a price. Let the checker tell you what not to do tonight, and let the bench tell you what it costs.
How much will this cost?
£250 + VAT covers a memory card or a pen drive. A single hard disk or SSD is £300 + VAT, a recorder or DVR £400 + VAT. Bring a second disk into it — NAS, RAID set, server — and the entry point becomes £500 + VAT. What you send decides which of those applies, and the checker will say which before you post anything. Each band is set out in full on the pricing page, and the free diagnosis turns yours into one written figure.
Does no recovery really mean no fee?
Most jobs, yes — nothing recovered, nothing to pay. Two kinds of work sit outside that promise: hardware that has taken a physical or electrical knock, and any device a previous lab has already been inside. Yours falling into either category is something you hear at the start, before you have agreed to a penny.
How quickly will I hear back?
One working day at the outside. While the desk is staffed a reply often takes half an hour, and anything that arrives overnight has one waiting for you after nine. The diagnosis takes longer: allow roughly 48 hours from the point a single disk reaches a bench.
Two minutes, and you know the price.
Checker, form, parcel, bench — and then the decision is yours alone, taken with a figure in front of you and nothing owed for the look.