Real prices for Norwich, Norfolk and anywhere else in the UK with a post office. There are six fixed bands, and most types of recovery fall into those bands. The price for your job is written down once the diagnostic is done, so there will be no surprise charges on an invoice later. Add VAT.
Asking what it costs is free. You can diagnose your problem through our website or call us, and the only charge you'll pay is the amount you have agreed in advance. On logical work, you only pay if we recover your data.
Cost follows the hardware and the fault, and has never been influenced by how worried you sounded on the phone. Nearly every item sent to us from Norwich and Norfolk falls into one of the six bands below, and your own figure is put in writing as soon as the free diagnostic has finished. Add VAT to all of them.
SD, microSD, CompactFlash and USB pen drives, where the data is taken off the flash chips directly.
Any one hard drive or SSD, whatever it came out of — laptop, tower, Mac or external case. NVMe blades cost the same.
Arrays, NAS boxes and servers. Each member disk earns its own image before anything is reassembled, so the count of disks sets the figure.
Recorder disks out of CCTV and DVR kit, with the footage that matters exported.
BitLocker decryption, where the drive is sound and you can supply the recovery key.
A standard forensic investigation with the written report; £400 + VAT covers the forensic binary-image and deleted-file service without one.
Hard drives and SSDs (NVMe included): one hard drive or SSD is £300 + VAT. RAID systems, NAS and servers start at £500 + VAT, and the cost increases as disks are added. CCTV/DVR disks and BitLocker unlocks are £400 + VAT each. A standard forensic investigation with report is £800 + VAT. A free diagnostic is your first step to getting your own price.
How urgently you need it is not used as a criterion. We need three pieces of information about your job, and that's all:
Each job starts from the same place: a quote over the phone or a free diagnostic from our website. We do not charge anything online and nothing for the engineer's inspection at our Cambridge location. What you get is one fixed written quote, and it's up to you whether to proceed or walk away.
On logical work, you only pay if we recover your data. This includes deleted files, formatted drives, corruption, or a healthy drive that will simply not show itself. If we can't get your data back, then the invoice reads zero.
If the bench turns up electronic, mechanical, chip-level, physical, water or fire damage, then 50% of the quoted price is paid before any invasive work can start. Head swaps, donor boards, NAND chip-off and firmware surgery all use up parts and bench hours. The balance only falls due once we have successfully recovered your data.
CCTV/DVR footage, BitLocker unlocking, ransomware cases and forensic work are paid for upfront once you accept our fixed quote. A standard investigation costs £800 + VAT with the complete written report; if there's no need for a report, the forensic binary image and deleted-file extraction comes in at £400 + VAT.
Get a quote first, then get your media to our Cambridge location: by tracked post (1 working day), or dropped at reception, about an hour and twenty minutes from Norwich on the A11, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm. The free diagnostic is completed within 2 working days of arrival. It's nice not to pay for something that tells you precisely where you stand.
Four jobs of the kind Norfolk sends us in an ordinary week, with the band each job landed in and the terms that applied. No matter what your job is, you will get the price in writing before the first screw is turned.
A Wymondham photographer, one folder dragged to the bin at speed, nothing wrong with the hardware. Logical work, £300 + VAT, and they would only pay if we recovered the data: nothing recovered would have meant nothing owed.
Heads down on the platters, which means buying donor parts and head-swap bench hours. Stays in the £300 + VAT band; half is settled before the invasive work starts, and the rest only if the data is recovered.
Four member disks, removed from their bays and labelled, then each disk individually imaged and put back together in software. This starts at £500 + VAT, based on the number of disks. Where a rebuild stays logical, you only pay if we recover your data.
Our recorder work is priced like our forensic services: £400 + VAT, paid upfront on acceptance of a fixed quote. We export and document the clips that matter for the insurer or the police. Please send us the disk from your recorder, not the recorder itself.
We carry out the initial no-cost diagnosis. Once that is done, the cost of the recovery is provided in writing. Absolutely nothing happens until you confirm.
Most items arrive at this bench by insured and tracked post. We recommend getting a quote first, either by telephone or using our free online diagnostic, and once you have received your quote, simply post the item. Post is the steadiest way to move a poorly drive, and a parcel sent from Norfolk typically arrives on the bench within a working day.
Is the drive still bolted inside a laptop, desktop, MacBook, iMac, server or CCTV / DVR recorder? Before sending, remove the hard disk drive (HDD) or solid state drive (SSD), as we do not accept whole units. From a DVR or recorder, send just the disk. From a server or RAID, take out the disks and clearly label each disk by bay number. A network attached storage (NAS) device may be sent as its disks if they can be removed; otherwise please send the NAS itself. There is only one type of drive we are unable to accept: storage soldered onto a motherboard (e.g. Apple Silicon Macs, extremely thin laptops). In such cases, if the storage cannot be taken out it cannot be accepted. If you are unsure whether you have a removable drive or not, call us before sending anything.
↓ Print the shipping & booking-in form (PDF)
Please mark the parcel for the attention of Cambridge Data Recovery. It takes about an hour and twenty minutes to travel from Norwich along the A11, then two minutes off the A14 at Junction 32. Otherwise you can post it using a tracked service and we will receive it the following working day. We will contact you as soon as we have your drive and it is booked onto our bench.
If you're unsure of what to include in the box, please call us on 0800 689 0668 before sealing it. Or, for a first view on what we can do, you can use our free online diagnostic.