Free 48-hour diagnostic with a single fixed fee agreed to in writing prior to opening anything. In most cases you only pay if we recover your data. The Cambridge Science Park is located immediately adjacent to Junction 33 (just past our bench at Junction 32).
Approximately 10 minutes and 3 miles will take you from central Cambridge to our bench. Simply drop off your device or send it to us via post.
Covering Histon, Impington, Milton and the wider Cambridgeshire area.
There are two main ways to get into Cambridge city centre, which is 3 miles south of the bench. The first way takes you 10 minutes via Histon Road. A second way is to take the guided busway, which would be 20 minutes. Most jobs within Cambridge are walked in.
Cambridge is first and foremost a city with an enormous emphasis on research. The nature of the data recovery work in Cambridge mirrors this emphasis nearly perfectly. A disproportionate share of what comes into the lab from the CB postcodes is unbacked intellectual work: doctoral data, stored on a single external hard disk; lab equipment PCs running old versions of acquisition software, used by students who were born after the software was created; startup laptop computers that hold the only copy of a company's code base until they get another round of funding. The biotechnology and semiconductor clusters located on the science parks have provided a steady stream of RAID and NAS jobs from small firms that have outgrown their storage without ever formalising a backup.
Cambridge Science Park is located at Junction 33, one junction away from us at Junction 32. There are other parks and campuses as well: St John's Innovation Centre, Cambridge Business Park, the Biomedical Campus at Addenbrooke's, Granta Park at Great Abington and the Babraham Research Campus. All of these are just a short ride from the bench.
Drawn directly from what has been done, not from some sort of capabilities list.
The theme that exists here is single-copy research data. This means that dissertations and thesis chapters may be stored on a single USB stick. Sequencing output is held on a lab drive that no one owns. Instrument PCs also have acquisition software that cannot be used with newer computers. In addition to the above, there exist the science-park array jobs. These jobs represent 4-bay NAS units purchased when an organisation had only 5 employees but never reviewed again after it grew to 50 employees.
Before you do anything else. Stop using the machine. If this is a university or research machine, then advise whoever is responsible for administering the machine not to use any repair tool or reinstall, because on shared systems repairing or reinstalling is usually the very next action taken.
In addition to that, the usual stream of household work comes from all areas: laptops that won't start, external drives filled with photographs, camera cards that have been accidentally formatted. All of these are from £250 to £300 +VAT and are frequently our fastest turnaround jobs. Business and array jobs from Cambridge and the rest of Cambridgeshire start from £500 +VAT.
It makes no difference if you hand-deliver the item or send it via courier.
Obtain a quote prior to dropping off or posting your drive. Obtain a quote over the phone, or fill out the online form. Then come down to Compass House, Vision Park, Cambridge CB24 9AD. Drop off your drive Monday to Friday, between 9am and 5:30pm. No appointment necessary. Or post it to us insured from anywhere in Cambridge. Please do not send entire computer systems. Only send the drive, as we will not accept complete computers (laptops, PCs or Macs).
Whether the fault is classified as mechanical, electronic, firmware or logical will determine the route for repair, cost and real probability of success.
There is one number agreed prior to opening up the device. The number never changes after that. Instead, if there is software available to accomplish this task, or if nothing can be salvaged, then you will hear this.
Imaged read-only, rebuilt using the image, checked by accessing files rather than counting them, and copied to new media and delivered via free shipping back to Cambridge.
This costs us the job. However, it is still the correct answer. You'd be better served hearing it sooner.
The drive still mounts and reads. Make copies of the most important files first and copy them off yourself. Once you've copied everything you need to, stop using it. A lab doesn't add value to something you can already read.
It is on a University or institutional system. Frequently departmental and college systems maintain backups through central servers without telling users. Sending one email to whoever manages the system will resolve more of these issues than what we could accomplish technically.
A recent deletion from a healthy drive. Reputable read-only applications, available at a fraction of what we charge, will often recover the deleted data when run from a different drive. We'll tell you which tools are worth trying.
Your BitLocker key exists after all. On a work or institutional computer, this is almost certainly stored centrally within Microsoft's Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) or Microsoft Intune. So ask before assuming that it has been lost.
Get a quote first. This can be done by phone or with our online form. Send the device to us with a brief account of what happened to it. The diagnostic is cost-free and obliges you to nothing. The figure that follows will then be fixed in writing before anything is opened.
Once you have a quote, nothing else can be done until the device is on the workbench. As such, this is the only step that needs anything from you. Pack it properly, add your details and post/deliver it with no appointment required. All that follows is a free diagnostic and a written quotation price, in that order.
Using postal services? Please use a method that has tracking and insurance; the value of what is on the drive far outweighs the cost of postage. If bringing in personally, please bring this item Monday to Friday, from 9am until 5:30pm without requiring an appointment, but again, please pack items carefully for transport.
Please provide information about the unit including what it is doing and any troubleshooting performed prior to contacting us. An engineer will then contact you to outline their professional assessment of the prospects along with a price range prior to you sending anything.
We’ll be in touch shortly. For anything urgent, call 01223 655015.
Obtain a quote prior to bringing your drive into Compass House. Obtain a quote over the phone or fill out the online form. Compass House is located at Vision Park, Cambridge CB24 9AD. The hours are Monday to Friday from 9am until 5:30pm. There is no need to schedule an appointment. We are about three miles away, and it takes approximately ten minutes to get here using the B1049 Histon Road. Alternatively, you may post your drive to us insured. We provide free return shipping regardless of whether you choose to post your drive to us or bring it in.
We will provide the price band immediately: the listed costs begin at £250 plus VAT for card data and £300 for a single drive. The exact cost is fixed in writing after the initial 48-hour complimentary diagnostic, and this cost will not change.
Switch it off immediately and leave it off. Clicking means the heads cannot find their servo data, and every time you turn it back on again there is an increased risk of damaging the hard disk drive surfaces. The length of time it was running after its first audible click will have a greater effect on recovery success than anything else we can do.
We do, regularly. We use NDAs by default, one named point of contact from diagnostic through to delivery, invoice established firms instead of using credit/debit cards, and provide a detailed report describing what failed (for audit and insurance purposes).
Our pricing starts at £250 plus VAT for cards and USB drives, then from £300 plus VAT for a single drive, or for laptops and Macs equipped with removable storage, with £550 plus VAT being our flat price for a Fusion Drive. Our prices for RAID, NAS and server systems start from £500 plus VAT; each quote is made in writing after we complete your complimentary 48-hour diagnostic.
It's rare, but possible with a logical error on good hardware dropped off early. We cannot compress a physical recovery that far: although priority treatment puts you ahead of everyone else in line, it does nothing to speed up how quickly your bad drive reads.
There is no cost to perform a diagnosis. In addition, in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Our facility is located about three miles from the centre of Cambridge. Therefore, we are not at the end of a long courier chain when receiving your drive. Obtain a quote, then send it to us insured, or simply walk it in. Both methods begin in the exact same way.