The bench · from first call to files
Seven stages, and two of them are your decision.
Seven stages, always in the same order, whatever you send in. It starts with a telephone call and finishes with you opening what came back and telling us it is right. Here is that run, and the two points at which the decision is yours alone.
An engineer answers, and looking is free
0800 6890668
The steps, one after another.
Begin with a call
Telephone, or fill in the quote form. Two things matter now: what the device was doing at the moment it stopped, and which folders you actually need. Back comes an honest read on the chances, and exact packing instructions, before the box is sealed.
Getting it to the bench
The intake lab is at Oxford Science Park, and the full address sits on the contact page. Send it insured and tracked with the printed form in the box. A laptop, desktop or recorder has its drive taken out first; a NAS can travel whole, and the disks out of a RAID set or a server go loose, marked by bay.
Logged the day it lands, and the look costs nothing Free
Opening the box comes first, and the parcel takes its own reference number. Then the bench work: which component has failed, what the realistic chance is of getting those files off, and how many hours it will take.
Your call to make
One figure, in writing, and it holds. Approve it and the work begins; refuse it and everything comes back to you, findings included, with nothing to pay. Diagnosis was free either way.
Work at the bench
Repair waits on a complete sector-by-sector copy held on storage of our own. Donor head swaps, firmware work, unlocking, array rebuilds all run against that copy, and what you posted is left exactly as it arrived.
You review the list
Before an invoice exists you are sent the full list of what came off, to measure against the folders you named on the telephone.
Back to you by post
What is recovered goes back on media we provide, carriage at our expense. Our own working copies are securely erased after thirty days. The case stays open until you tell us the contents are right.
How long, fault by fault.
| Nature of the fault | How it is tackled | Working days needed |
|---|---|---|
| Logical faults: deletions, reformats, corruption | Filesystem rebuilt off the image copy | 2–3 business days |
| Mechanical faults: ticking, knocking, silence | Donor parts matched, then a careful image | three to five working days |
| Multi-drive: RAID, NAS and servers | Every disk imaged, array rebuilt in software | four to six working days |
| Encrypted volumes and evidence work | Scope agreed first, and the timing with it | Stated in your quote |
| A real emergency | A business that cannot trade, or a court or audit date already in the diary, is taken first | Flag it when you ring |
What to send in the box.
The questions that come first.
Will I hear from you while the work is going on?
Yes. A message goes out at the end of every stage set out below. In between, pick up the phone and ask: an engineer answers it, so nothing sits as a ticket in a queue nobody reads.
And if the files are truly gone?
You are told once, in plain words, rather than strung along week after week. Where the files have genuinely gone, that is what you hear. Where another lab would stand the better chance, you are given the name and the number. And on most jobs, nothing is charged unless the files come back.
Who actually handles the drive?
Our own engineers, at the bench inside the intake lab. Nothing is subcontracted and nothing travels abroad. A case number goes on the parcel the moment it is opened, and it follows the device through to the day it goes home.
How long do you keep the copies?
Thirty days, running from the day your files reach you — long enough to notice a gap and ask for a second look at it. The working images are then securely erased, and nothing of yours is left here.
One phone call starts it.
One call, or the form, and a case opens. Diagnosis is free and commits you to nothing.