Salt air is genuinely hard on electronics, and Cromer gets more of it than most. Drives that have spent years within sight of the pier come to the bench by tracked post and are usually more recoverable than they look.
Cromer jobs are diagnosed free. One fixed written quote before any work begins — no fix, no fee on most recoveries.
The corrosion is not a story we tell to sell anything — it is simply what turns up. Airborne salt gets into cases, settles on circuit boards and quietly eats contacts and solder joints, and a drive that has sat in a NR27 flat, a beach-facing office or a boat shed for five or six years will often show it. The reassuring part is that the damage is nearly always electrical rather than magnetic: the board is corroded, the platters are not, and the photographs are still exactly where they were. Cromer sends us seafront businesses' tills and camera recorders, guesthouse booking machines that fail at the worst possible point in the season, the crab boats' and charter skippers' paperwork, and a great many photographers — the pier, the cliffs and the lifeboat are among the most-photographed subjects in Norfolk, and all those frames end up on cards and externals.
Getting a drive off the coast is simple. Take it out of its case only if that is straightforward, pad it well, and send it tracked and insured; from Cromer it reaches the bench the next working day. Cards travel best taped inside folded stiff card in a padded envelope. If you'd rather use your own courier, that booking and that bill are yours to arrange. And if someone is driving down anyway, the desk takes devices in person, weekdays from 9am until 5:30pm: Cambridge Data Recovery, Compass House, Vision Park, Chivers Way, Cambridge CB24 9AD. There is no collection service — no van, no pickup, nothing to wait in for.
The free diagnostic finishes inside 2 working days of arrival and ends in one fixed written figure with an honest view attached. Logical work is no fix, no fee. Corroded boards, seized motors, dropped drives, water and fire damage all mean physical work, so half the quote is paid before it starts and the rest only if the data comes back — which, on a corroded board over sound platters, it usually does. Ransomware, camera recorders and BitLocker count as forensic work here, settled in advance and in full.
We take neither phones nor tablets, and no memory soldered down onto a logic board; 0800 689 0668 will tell you in a minute which category yours is in. Sheringham, West Runton, Overstrand, Mundesley, Holt and the coast road villages between them post in on identical terms, salt and all.
Most of what reaches this bench arrived by tracked, insured post. It is the steadiest way to move a poorly drive, and a parcel posted in Norfolk is usually on the bench the next working day.
Is the drive still bolted inside a laptop, desktop, MacBook, iMac, server or CCTV / DVR recorder? The hard drive or SSD needs to come out first, and only the bare drive travels — taking drives out of machines is not something we do here. Storage soldered to a motherboard (Apple Silicon Macs, one or two very thin laptops) is the single thing beyond us: if it will not come out, it cannot come in.
↓ Print the shipping & booking-in form (PDF)
Mark the parcel for the attention of Cambridge Data Recovery. From Norwich it is about an hour and twenty down the A11, then two minutes off the A14 at Junction 32 — or next working day by tracked post. You hear from us as soon as it is booked onto the bench.
Unsure what to put in the box? Ring 0800 689 0668 before you seal it, or run the free online diagnostic.
Diagnosis costs nothing, the figure is written down, and most jobs carry no fix no fee. Online or by phone.