We do not have branches, and that is the honest way round: a recovery happens on a bench with the right equipment behind it, so what matters is which bench your drive reaches rather than how far it travelled. A tracked box from any UK postcode gets it here overnight, and the diagnostic that follows is the same one a walk-in gets.
Distance is the least interesting variable in a recovery. Overnight carriage puts every UK postcode within a day of the same engineers and the same equipment.
Norwich, Ipswich, Milton Keynes and the Kent towns mostly reach us by post rather than by hand, and the work is identical either way. Same free 48-hour diagnostic, same fixed price in writing, same no fix, no fee terms, and we cover the return leg on every job.
The only practical difference is when the clock starts. The diagnostic begins the morning your package is opened rather than the day you rang, so a Friday posting is effectively a Monday start.
If you are inside about half an hour of Vision Park, driving it in saves those transit days. Beyond that, post is genuinely the sensible option rather than a compromise.
A drive travels better than the machine around it and costs less to post. If you are not confident removing it, send the whole machine rather than risking damage on the way out.
Anti-static bag around the drive, then firm padding on every side, then a box with room to spare. A drive that has already failed should not suffer an impact in transit.
Your name, number and a short note on what happened. Labels come off in transit and a drive with no identification inside is a delay nobody needs.
Royal Mail Special Delivery or a tracked courier. The drive is worth little and what is on it is not, so the insurance is about tracking rather than value.
Do not post a wet drive dried out. If a device has been in water, send it damp and sealed in a bag rather than drying it with heat first. A drive that arrives wet and has never been powered is a far better prospect than one dried on a radiator and tested.
Do not post loose array members unlabelled. On any RAID or NAS, label every disk with the bay it came from before it goes in the box. Bay order is part of the array structure and unlabelled disks add work at your expense in time.
Do send the enclosure. On externals, send the case, cable and power supply with the drive. On WD My Passport and My Book the encryption key lives on the bridge board, and a bare disk from one of those is unreadable without it.
Cambridge Data Recovery, Compass House, Vision Park, Chivers Way, Cambridge CB24 9AD. Include your name, number and a note on what happened inside the box.
Yes, on every job. Recovered data comes back on new encrypted media or by secure link, and your original media is returned at our cost.
Use a tracked, signed-for service. We cannot insure a package before it reaches us, which is why tracking rather than declared value is the thing that matters.
Yes, and it is better than a drive damaged during removal. Remove the battery if it is easily accessible and the machine has suffered liquid damage.
Within 48 hours of the package being opened. That is a written verdict with a fixed price, not a holding email.
Courier collection can be arranged for business jobs across the region, same day where needed. For domestic work, insured post is usually quicker and cheaper.