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RDR / What we take in / Emergency and urgent jobs

Emergency jobs · first onto the imager

Emergency data recovery, Reading. Say it is urgent: opened the day it lands, imaged before anything else.

Urgent means something you can check. Your parcel is opened the day it lands, the fault is named before that day ends, and your drive goes onto the imager ahead of every other job waiting for it. The published bands are the same as ever — £300 + VAT for a single drive, from £500 + VAT once it is an array, a NAS or a server — and any priority charge appears separately on the one written quote. A distributor at Theale running one server behind the warehouse office, an edit suite at Shinfield holding a card that will not mount, a Newbury office with a payroll run due — all three are better off ringing before they post, and so is anyone in Reading with a date to meet.

Nothing recovered? On most jobs, nothing to pay The diagnosis is free; then one fixed figure in writing Parcels arrive from Newbury, Woodley and Theale

An engineer answers, and looking is free
0800 6890668

Urgent jobs: match the symptom to the fault.

Different fault? Begin at the triage →
What you are seeingWhat is likely wrongWhat happens next
The server the firm runs on has stoppedEvery disk imaged before anything else, then the set rebuilt from those copies — always a priority jobRing before you post it
A rebuild halted part-way and nothing has been touched sinceThe right instinct — each further retry spends more of what is leftLeave it powered off and call
There is a fixed date at the other end of thisPayroll, a tribunal, a delivery deadline — the bench plans backwards from your dateGive us the date first
The only copies of the family photographs were on itA household archive is scheduled exactly the way a company server isYou get an honest answer either way
File names are changing while you watchContain it first, preserve what is there, recover afterwardsPull the network lead out; leave the power alone
Packing and posting: pad it so nothing can move, put a cover value on the parcel that reflects what the files are worth to you, and send it tracked to the intake lab. Return postage is ours. Ring first if you would rather an engineer talked the packing through before the box is sealed. It is all set out on the packing and postage page.

What actually sets the timetable.

Logical or mechanicalA purely logical fault on sound hardware often finishes inside a day or two. Donor head swaps, and putting an array back together from images, take longer here exactly as they would anywhere. Nothing speeds up a surface that reads slowly.
Size and stateHours is what a healthy 4TB disk costs the imager. Days is what the same capacity costs once every weak sector has to be asked for repeatedly. Capacity and condition together set the timetable.
Tracking down a donor matchNothing generic will do. A replacement board, or a replacement head stack, has to come off a drive of the same model and family, carrying firmware from the same generation. What sits in stock goes to priority jobs first; an uncommon drive waits out the hunt for a donor, and no fee has ever made a hunt go faster.
Whatever's been tried beforeWhatever was tried at a desk comes in with the disk — one more power cycle, one more utility set loose on it, a rebuild forced through the warnings. Untouched drives are the ones that go back out fastest.

From your parcel to your files coming back.

Jobs we have closed →
01

Logged the day it lands, and the look costs nothing Free

A case number goes on your device the day it reaches us, and an engineer then finds the real fault — free, and before anything else happens. You are told plainly what will come back and what will not, with one fixed figure in writing beside it. Nothing chargeable starts until you have read that and said yes.

The look costs you nothingA fixed price, in writingStill nothing to pay
02

Mention it on the phone

One sentence does it: the business has stopped, or the date you are working to. That call marks the job urgent, opens a case number and sets bench time aside, all before the parcel has left your hands.

Flagged urgent on the callBench time held for it
03

Imaged ahead of the rest

The box comes open and the fault gets a name on the day it lands. Imaging then goes through in one uninterrupted run, ahead of everything else queued behind it. Phone as often as you like — whoever is holding the job can tell you where it stands.

Opened the day it arrivesImaged without pauses
04

Back as soon as it verifies

Once the files you named as the priority open and read correctly, your data goes out: encrypted transfer, or fresh media bought for the job and posted back at our expense.

Opened and checked firstSent back the fastest way
05

The list first, then the bill, then the files

You see the file list first, then decide. Nothing is invoiced until you have said yes, and on most jobs there is no fee at all if the data does not come back. What we pull off goes onto media bought in for your job, and the postage home is ours. The case stays open on the bench until you tell us the files open on your own machine.

Nothing billed until you say yesNew media, bought for the jobPostage home is on us

What goes wrong most often

  • Read speed writes the timetable, not the invoice — a healthy multi-terabyte disk is off the imager in hours, while one retrying the same tired sectors at two or three megabytes a second holds it for days. Everything after that is scheduling around the imager.
  • A fee buys position, not physics — your drive moves up the list and is worked without being put aside for anything. What no fee can do is conjure a donor nobody stocks, or persuade a worn sector to give up its contents faster.
  • Name the deadline and the reading order changes — sectors underneath the folders you nominate are lifted first, verified first and sent back first, ahead of the rest of the volume.
  • The untouched drive is the quick one — a disk that comes in powered down, with nothing run over it and no rebuild attempted, routinely goes home days ahead of one that has been worked on at a desk.

Five things set the timescale, and paying for urgency shifts none of them: the component that went, the number of terabytes to get through, how the surfaces have held up, whether the shelf already holds a matching donor, and what was tried before the parcel was taped. Which is why this page carries opening hours rather than a badge implying somebody is at the bench all night — Monday to Friday, 9am until 5:30pm. Priority parcels from Reading, Newbury, Didcot and the towns in between are opened the day they arrive, run without pauses through every staffed hour, and given a completion date at the point we can stand behind one.

How one of these actually went.

RG · RDG-2026-1953ON FILE ✓

A Thatcham haulier: no bookings on Monday, taking them again by Thursday

A rebuild was still running when the Monday call came through, so the job went straight past the queue. Nothing further was asked of the array — the power came out and it was left exactly as it was. Each member was imaged on its own, and the volume was reassembled from those images, never from the live disks. The database opened clean, and the firm was taking bookings again before Thursday was out.

Their business running again on day 4Pushed aheadof the queue

What helps, and what makes it worse.

First things to do

  • Ring first: say the business has stopped, or give your date
  • Shut the failed machine down and leave it off
  • Have whoever approves the cost within reach
  • Mark every disk with its bay number, written-off ones included

What makes it worse

  • Starting one more rebuild while you make up your mind
  • Believing a firm that offers a head crash cured by morning
  • Waiting until tomorrow, when today's call reserves bench time
  • Sending half the disks here and half somewhere else

Answers before you commit to anything.

How fast is an urgent job, realistically?

It depends entirely on the fault. A logical problem sitting on sound mechanics is frequently back with you within a day or two on priority. Disk sets take longer; so does any drive whose heads are on the way out. The imager governs the rest — a worn sector releases its contents at whatever rate it can manage, and no fee alters that rate. A real date follows the engineer's assessment. It never precedes it.

Is there anyone working overnight?

No, and treat any firm hinting that head swaps carry on unattended once its building empties as a firm worth checking. Priority here means one thing: yours goes to the head of the queue and is worked straight through every staffed hour, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm. Hours you can check beat a badge you cannot.

Can you give me a completion date before it arrives?

No. A date quoted sight unseen is a guess dressed up. With a physical fault everything rests on how the surfaces read, and on whether a matching donor exists at all — neither of which can be judged over a telephone. What you are promised instead is threefold: top of the queue, an assessment done on the day your parcel arrives, and a date as soon as an honest one exists.

Does priority carry an extra charge?

Yes. Moving your drive in front of everybody else's has a cost, and it is written on the single quote you are asked to agree, beside the recovery figure itself. The diagnosis stays free either way, and on most jobs there is no fee if the data does not come back.

If this sounds like yours, start here.

Servers and RAID arrays → Servers that will not boot → Disks out of a NAS → Every device we handle →

Nothing gets worse while it sits switched off.

You pay nothing for the look. What comes back is a list — the files that opened, the ones that did not, and one fixed figure to finish the job. Leave it switched off until you have that in writing.

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