Free 48-hour diagnostic, one fixed price agreed in writing before anything is opened, and no fix no fee on most jobs. Britain's oldest recorded town, combining the University of Essex and its research park at Wivenhoe, the garrison and its contractor base, and a coastal hinterland at Mersea and Brightlingsea.
Roughly 60 minutes and 48 miles separate Colchester from our bench — drop it in yourself, or put it in the post.
Covering Wivenhoe, Stanway, West Mersea and the wider Essex area.
Forty-eight miles south-east via the M11 and A12, around the hour. Post covers it comfortably.
Colchester combines a garrison, a university and a coastal hinterland, and produces work from all three. The university sends research and departmental data; the garrison and its contractor base send material with security handling requirements attached; the coast at Mersea and Brightlingsea sends marine and small-business systems. It is the most varied catchment in Essex and the one where the handling requirements differ most from job to job.
Britain's oldest recorded town, combining the University of Essex and its research park at Wivenhoe, the garrison and its contractor base, and a coastal hinterland at Mersea and Brightlingsea.
Drawn from the work rather than from a capability list.
Research, defence-adjacent and marine, in a mix unlike anywhere else we cover. University departmental data, contractor material with handling constraints, and coastal small-business and vessel systems. Where security requirements apply, the work stays in-house and the media never leaves the building.
Before you do anything else. Where handling restrictions apply, establish them before the media moves. It is easier to agree the terms first than to unpick them afterwards.
Alongside that there is the ordinary run of household work that every area produces: laptops that stopped starting, external drives full of photographs, camera cards formatted by mistake. Those are from £250 to £300 +VAT and are frequently the quickest jobs we handle. Business and array work from Colchester and across Cambridgeshire starts from £500 +VAT.
The same whether you walk it in or send it by courier.
Compass House, Vision Park, Cambridge CB24 9AD, Monday to Friday 9am to 5:30pm — or insured post from Colchester. Send the bare drive rather than the whole machine where you can.
The fault is classified — mechanical, electronic, firmware or logical — because that decides the route, the price and the realistic odds.
One figure, agreed before anything is touched, and it does not move afterwards. If software would do it, or nothing can be recovered, you hear that instead.
Imaged read-only, rebuilt from the copy, verified by opening files rather than counting them, and returned on fresh media with free shipping back to Colchester.
It costs us the job and it is still the right answer. You would rather hear it now than after an invoice.
The drive still mounts and reads. Copy your files off yourself, most important first, then stop using it. There is nothing we add to a drive you can still read.
The material is held elsewhere for compliance. Regulated and legal work is frequently archived somewhere nobody asked about — a compliance system, a practice management platform, an outsourced store. Worth one call before you assume it has gone.
A recent deletion from a healthy drive. Reputable read-only software, installed to a different drive, will often do it for a fraction of what we would charge.
The backup did run after all. Not every failed backup notification means a failed backup. Check the actual media before writing it off.
Send the device over with a short account of what happened to it. The diagnostic costs nothing and commits you to nothing, and the figure that follows is fixed in writing before anything is opened.
Nothing can begin until the device is on the bench, which makes this the only step that needs anything from you. Pack it properly, put your details in with it, and send it over. What follows is a free diagnostic and a written figure, in that order.
Posting it? Use something tracked and insured — whatever is on the drive is worth considerably more than the postage. Bringing it in? Weekdays, 9am to 5:30pm, and it still wants packing as above for the journey.
Tell us what the device is, what it is doing, and anything already tried — an engineer will come back with a realistic view of the odds and a price band, before you commit to posting anything.
We’ll be in touch shortly. For anything urgent, call 01223 655015.
Compass House, Vision Park, Cambridge CB24 9AD, Monday to Friday 9am to 5:30pm. We’re about forty-eight miles away via the M11 and A12, roughly 60 minutes. Or post it insured — return shipping is free either way.
We can give you the band immediately — the published prices start at £250 plus VAT for cards and £300 for a single drive. The exact figure is fixed in writing after the free 48-hour diagnostic, and it does not move afterwards.
Switch it off and leave it off. Clicking means the heads cannot find their servo data, and every further power-on risks scoring the surface. How long it ran after the first noise affects the result more than anything we do.
Regularly. NDAs signed as standard, one named contact from diagnostic to delivery, invoicing rather than card payment for established firms, and a written account of what failed for insurers or auditors.
From £250 plus VAT for cards and USB media, from £300 plus VAT for a single drive, laptop or Mac with removable storage, £550 plus VAT flat for a Fusion Drive, and from £500 plus VAT for RAID, NAS and servers — each quoted in writing after a free 48-hour diagnostic.
Occasionally, on a logical fault with healthy hardware dropped in early. Physical recoveries cannot be compressed that far — priority handling moves you to the front of the queue but cannot make a failing drive read faster.
The diagnostic costs nothing, most jobs carry no fee unless the data comes back, and the bench is 11 miles away rather than at the end of a courier chain. Walk it in, or send it insured — both start the same way.