Every band, out in the open
Data recovery prices for Reading. Here is the whole ladder, and your own figure follows in writing.
£250 + VAT is the floor here, and the bands above it are all set out further down, so your own device can be placed before you pick up the phone. Very few labs in this trade publish anything at all. Working out your exact figure is free whether the parcel comes from Reading or the far end of Berkshire, and on most jobs no invoice is raised where the recovery does not succeed.
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The price each kind of job starts at.
| Priced from | What sort of job | What sits in the band |
|---|---|---|
| £250 + VAT | Memory cards and USB sticks | SD, microSD, CompactFlash and USB sticks — any flash media |
| £300 + VAT | A lone disk | Hard disk, SSD or NVMe — bare, or still in the laptop |
| £300 + VAT | Any Mac, any model | APFS and HFS+ volumes, FileVault, T2 and Apple silicon |
| £400 + VAT | Recorders — DVR, NVR, CCTV | Hikvision, Dahua, Swann and the rest — the box itself, not the cameras |
| from £500 + VAT | Server, RAID and NAS units | QNAP, Synology and WD boxes; PowerEdge, ProLiant and Lenovo servers; RAID 0, 1, 5, 6 and 10 |
| from £500 + VAT | Database and email stores | PostgreSQL, MySQL, Exchange and SQL Server |
| £800 + VAT and up | Virtual-machine disk images | Damaged VM folders, and snapshot chains that no longer resolve — VMDK, VHDX, VHD, QCOW2 |
| £800 + VAT and up | Forensic jobs and the write-up | Civil and employment matters written up, every step logged |
| from £1,250 + VAT | Big arrays and SAN volumes | One volume spread across several arrays |
Something else altogether? The symptom checker answers three questions in one pass: which band applies, what has most likely gone wrong, and what not to do to the thing before it is packed.
Four notes that go with the table.
- Every figure here excludes VAT; the standard UK rate goes on top.
- Treat these as starting points rather than bills. What you actually pay follows from whichever fault we find, and that number is put in writing at the close of the free diagnosis — always ahead of any charge.
- No fee unless the data comes back, on most jobs. If what you were after does not return, there is nothing to pay for the attempt.
- Three job types take half at the outset: recorders, forensic instructions, and any repair fitting donor components into the drive. In each case the hours and the parts are spent whatever the outcome. You settle the balance after the data is back in your hands.
One band can still mean two separate bills.
What happens after the quote lands with you.
| The circumstances | What is likely wrong | The amount due |
|---|---|---|
| You give the go-ahead | We begin at the figure you agreed | Due after you have checked the file list |
| You pass on it | The device goes home with the findings | You owe nothing — not for the look, not for the postage home |
| No data can be retrieved | No fee unless the data comes back, on most work | Nothing falls due |
| An unforeseen problem appears | We stop and ring before going any further | The figure you agreed does not move |
| Recorders, forensic jobs, donor parts | Half at the outset, half on success | Said plainly before you agree |
| Another lab has already had it open | Priced individually once the look is done | The no-fee rule may not apply |
The £49 advertisement, and what that £49 actually buys
- £49 is a diagnostic fee, not a recovery price — it buys a place in a queue and a look at your drive. The recovery figure arrives afterwards, by which time the drive is on somebody else's bench and walking away has become awkward.
- Ask what a failure costs — where nothing in writing says a failed job is free, nobody has a reason to hurry to you with bad news.
- Ask whether the price can move — ours does not. Whatever we meet after you have agreed is ours to carry, and the invoice matches the quote.
- Ask who will physically open it — a fair number of firms add their margin and pass the drive to somebody else. Here the engineers who take it out of the box are the ones who do the work, and no third party handles it on the way through.
Where a table stops being useful: take these numbers at face value. One hard disk whose only trouble is a logical fault costs £300 + VAT — that is the price, not an approximation, and nothing gets added afterwards. The unknown is mechanical failure, because no published grid can say beforehand how many matched donor components a given drive is going to want. Settling that question is what the free diagnosis exists for, and it is why your figure goes on paper before anybody starts.
The questions that come first.
How much will this cost?
Count the disks first, then name the device — between them they put you in a band. Flash of any sort, an SD card or a pen drive, is £250 + VAT. Anything holding exactly one disk, spinning or solid state, loose or still bolted inside a laptop or an iMac, is £300 + VAT. Video recorders sit at £400 + VAT. Once a second disk enters the picture — a RAID set, a four-bay NAS, a rack server — you start at £500 + VAT. An £800 + VAT floor covers virtual machine datastores, and covers anything worked to a forensic instruction as well. The grid further up the page says the same thing in fewer words, and your own number is put on paper once the free diagnosis has run.
Is the look really free of charge?
Yes, and turning the quotation down costs you nothing either. Your only outlay is the postage out to us. Whatever it costs to send your drive back afterwards, we pay.
When is a deposit required?
Three kinds of work take half at the start: anything run to a forensic instruction, a recorder with the disk built into the chassis, and any repair needing donor components sourced and matched. The reason is identical in all three — those hours and those parts are spent regardless of the outcome. The remaining half falls due when the data is handed over. Everything else on this site runs the other way round: on most jobs, nothing to pay where nothing comes back.
When exactly do I settle up?
Payment sits between two events. You go through the list of what was recovered and confirm it reads correctly; then, and only then, the fresh media is posted. The terms set out that order in writing. On a normal job we ask for nothing when the drive arrives and nothing while it is being worked.
Any hidden charges on the bill?
There are none. The diagnosis is unpaid, the postage home comes out of our costs rather than yours, and the number you agreed is the number on the invoice. One thing can be added if you want it, priority handling, and its cost is quoted to you before you commit.
Someone quoted us less. What now?
Ask them three questions. Does that price still stand once the drive is open? What do you owe if nothing whatever comes back? And whose bench does the work? Here the answers are: it holds, on most jobs you owe nothing, and your drive is not passed on to a third party.
That is the entire list. Your own figure follows a free look.
Fill in the form, or simply post the drive — either route works. The diagnosis costs nothing, the price reaches you in writing, and you decide from there.