You can get a free 48-hour diagnostic, we agree on one fixed price in writing before opening your equipment, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Colchester is Britain’s oldest recorded town, and it has three components: the University of Essex and its research park at Wivenhoe, the garrison and its contractor base, and a coastal hinterland that takes in Mersea and Brightlingsea.
Colchester is roughly 70 minutes (64 miles) away from our bench: bring it over yourself, or put it in the post.
Covering Wivenhoe, Stanway, West Mersea and the wider Essex area.
Colchester is 64 miles south-east of us on the M11 and A120, around 70 minutes away. Post will easily cover this distance.
Colchester contains a military garrison, a university, and a coastal hinterland, and produces work for us from each area. The university provides us with departmental and research data. The garrison and its contractor base provide material requiring security handling. The coastal areas of Mersea and Brightlingsea provide both maritime and small-business systems. This area is the most diverse in Essex, and the one where the handling requirements differ most from job to job.
This is Britain's oldest recorded town and contains the University of Essex and its research park at Wivenhoe, the military garrison and its contractor base, as well as a coastal hinterland at Mersea and Brightlingsea.
Drawn directly from what has been done, not from some sort of capabilities list.
Research, defence-adjacent and marine work, all mixed together in a way you won't find anywhere else we cover. Data from university departments, contractor material restricted by handling constraints, and small-business and vessel systems along the coast. Wherever there is a security requirement, the work is done in-house by our own engineers, and none of the media travels out of the UK.
Before you do anything else. Establish whether any handling restrictions apply before you move the media. It will be easier to agree how the media is handled first, as opposed to having to unpick those decisions after it has been moved.
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 Colchester 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 Colchester. 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 Colchester.
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.
Firstly, get a quote from us by telephone, or use our form, and then bring your drive to Compass House, Vision Park, Cambridge CB24 9AD. The office is open Monday to Friday from 9am until 5:30pm, and there are no appointments required. We are approximately sixty-four miles away using the M11 and A120, which should take around 70 minutes. If you would rather post it, send it insured. The return shipping is free whichever way 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.
The cost for diagnostic work is nothing, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Our Cambridge office is approximately sixty-four miles from where you are, rather than at the end of a courier chain. Get a quote, then either walk your drive into the office or send it insured: both methods begin with the same first step.