Free assessment · then one fixed price
The fault gets named first. The price comes second.
The checker is two questions and nothing more. Back comes a probable cause, a blunt note on what you should not try next, and a rough idea of the bench cost. The form sits further down the page. An engineer then assesses the device at the lab for nothing, and the figure written on paper is the figure you pay.
You will be talking to an engineer
0800 6890668
Two questions, a probable cause.
How the job runs →What are we looking at?
Pick whichever is closest.
Two taps, a straight answer, and one step worth taking ahead of all the others. The free diagnosis is a different matter — that one needs the drive itself in front of an engineer. Treat this as the answer the phone would give you, except that it is still working at three in the morning.
Then the detail.
What follows after that.
A reply inside one working day
What you send is read by a person, not sorted by a script into a category. Back comes an honest first opinion: the realistic chances, the single thing not to touch, and where to post it.
On the bench, fault identified Free
Every device is given its own case number and then goes to the bench. That is the stage where the real fault is identified and we establish how much of the platters, or the flash, can still be read.
Then the figure, and your call
Your quote arrives in writing. Accept it and the bench begins. Decline and the device goes back to you, carriage paid. The assessment was free whichever you choose, and no clause anywhere claws that back.
The address, and the forms.
Rather have it on paper? →Anything typed here appears on the printed sheet as well. Would you rather use paper? Download the PDF and fill that in by hand. Both work, so long as one copy goes in the parcel.
Boxing it up.
Run through this before sealing it
- Every password, written down: Windows logins, FileVault, BitLocker recovery keys — the lot goes on the shipping form. No lab has a back door through encryption. Without the key we get exactly as far as you did.
- Tell us what cannot be lost: name those folders and they are read first when the work starts.
- Externals come whole: the cables can stay behind. A WD My Passport's bridge board is married to that one disk, so both must arrive together.
- Keep the mains adaptor unless we ask for it. Should a piece have snapped off or worked loose, put it in a bag and send it with the drive. Throw nothing away.
Saying it twice: whatever the checker told you, keep the device switched off and unplugged. A good deal of the damage arriving on this bench began with one more go.
Questions asked before posting it.
Does the checker count as a diagnosis?
It does not — the two are separate. A diagnosis means an engineer has the hardware in hand and works through it in stages until the fault can be named. All the checker does is mirror the boxes you ticked and suggest what is probably wrong. Take the first as evidence and the second as a pointer. Quotes follow evidence.
What does the work usually cost?
Which band you land in follows the hardware, and the checker names it. Cards and pen drives start at £250 + VAT. A lone hard disk is £300 + VAT. Recorders, DVRs included, are £400 + VAT. Two disks or more begin at £500 + VAT. Every band is broken down on the pricing page. Once the assessment is done — and it is free — the band becomes one written figure.
Is no recovery, no fee for real?
On most jobs, yes: nothing back means nothing to pay. Where a job falls outside that, you are told before you agree to anything. The usual exceptions are drives with physical or electrical damage, and anything another firm has already opened up.
How soon do you reply?
Within one working day. Thirty minutes is common if your message arrives while the desk is manned; anything sent overnight is answered the following morning. Once a single disk is on the bench, the diagnosis usually runs to 48 hours.
Two minutes, and you have a price.
Checker, form, parcel, counter. What happens after that is entirely yours to decide, and having it assessed will have cost nothing.