Free 48-hour diagnostic, one fixed cost that will be agreed in writing prior to opening any part of your item, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. This is the administrative and professional heartland of Essex (the court system, the county council, a major financial services sector and a large legal sector), as well as being home to Anglia Ruskin University's campus in the city.
It takes roughly 60 minutes and 45 miles by car to get to us from Chelmsford, so either drop it off at our lab yourself, or just pop it in the post.
Covering Great Baddow, Springfield, Writtle and the wider Essex area.
Forty-five miles south of Cambridge along the M11 and A120, approximately a one-hour drive. Postage for insured materials is simple from this location and there is no charge for return postage.
The City of Chelmsford is the main administrative and professional centre of Essex: the courts, county council offices, insurance and financial services, and a substantial legal sector. Work here is document-based and often subject to disclosure obligations, thus changing how documents are handled: legal case files, local authority records and financial services archive material. It is also the area with the highest incidence of forensic requests, due to the greater likelihood of that material being submitted into proceedings than in other areas we serve.
The administrative and professional hub for the county of Essex: the courts, the county council, a large number of lawyers working in the legal area and a large number of financial institutions, with Anglia Ruskin's campus located in the city.
Drawn directly from what has been done, not from some sort of capabilities list.
Legal, financial and public sector records. Case files, disclosure material, authority archives, financial services data. Forensic and evidential recovery is a larger portion of our work here, and therefore chain of custody documentation comes as standard rather than on request.
Before you do anything else. If there is a chance this material could end up in a proceeding, let us know prior to handling it. Correct handling cannot be applied retrospectively; we need to handle it properly from the beginning.
In addition to that, we also receive many examples of standard day-to-day household computer problems, which occur within every community, such as laptops that won’t start again, external drives containing your family photos, and memory cards formatted by mistake on one of your cameras. The cost for these items ranges from £250 to £300 plus VAT, and they are often amongst the fastest services we provide. Business and array work from Chelmsford and throughout Cambridgeshire begins at £500 plus VAT.
It makes no difference if you hand-deliver the item or send it via courier.
First get a quote either by using our form or by phoning us. We will then ask you to deliver your drive to Compass House, Vision Park, Cambridge CB24 9AD, Monday to Friday 9am to 5:30pm, without needing an appointment. Alternatively you may post the drive insured from Chelmsford. Only send the drive, as we don't accept complete 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 Chelmsford.
We lose the job, but this is our correct response. It's better for you to know this now instead of when there is a bill due.
The drive still mounts and reads. Transfer your files off the device yourself, the most important ones first, then don't use it. We add nothing to a device you can still access.
The material is held elsewhere for compliance. Regulated and legal work is often stored on another server or store that was never asked about: compliance systems, practice management platforms, third-party stores. It's worth one phone call prior to assuming that it has been lost.
A recent deletion from a healthy drive. Reputable read-only programs installed on a different drive will often accomplish this at a fraction of what we would quote.
The backup did run after all. A failed backup notice does not always mean that a backup failed. Examine the physical media prior to writing it off.
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.
First get a quote by telephone or using the quote form, then bring it to Compass House, Vision Park, Cambridge CB24 9AD, Monday to Friday 9am to 5:30pm (no appointment required). We are approximately 45 miles away via the M11 and A120, roughly 60 minutes. Alternatively, send it insured. Postage back is complimentary whichever method you choose.
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.
Our diagnostic service is free, in most cases you only pay if we recover your data, and also our Cambridge location is approximately 45 miles away rather than at the end of a courier chain. You have two options for starting the service: you can either walk your drive into our office or send it to us insured. Both options begin with getting a quote.