Salt air is genuinely hard on electronic equipment, 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 generally more recoverable than they look.
Cromer jobs are diagnosed free. There is a single, fixed, written quote provided prior to any work being performed, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.
The corrosion isn't a story to sell you something; it's just what happens. Salt from the air gets into cases, settles onto circuit boards, and quietly eats away at contact points and solder joints. If a drive sits in a NR27 flat, a beach-facing office or a boat shed for about five or six years, it will often show it. The reassuring part is that the damage is generally electrical as opposed to magnetic: the board itself may be corroded while the platters remain unaffected, and the photographs you took remain in exactly the same place. Cromer sends us seafront businesses' tills and camera recorders, guest house booking machines which fail at the worst point in the season, paperwork from the crab boats and charter skippers, 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.
It's easy to get your drive to us off the coast. First, get a quote by phone or with the free online diagnostic. Then send the drive only, not the laptop or PC (a single external drive goes whole, along with its cable and power adapter), make sure it is well packaged, and send it tracked and insured. From Cromer it should arrive at our bench the next working day. Cards travel best taped inside a folded stiff card and then placed in a padded envelope. Alternatively, if you prefer to use your own courier, both the booking and the costs are yours. If someone is driving down anyway, we also accept devices in person, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, without an appointment, at 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 takes up to 2 working days to complete from arrival, and ends in a single fixed written figure with an honest opinion attached. On logical work, you only pay if we recover your data. Corroded circuit boards, seized motors, dropped drives, water or fire damage are all physical work, so 50% of the quoted price is due before that work begins, and you are only charged the remaining balance if your files come back (which, on a corroded board over sound platters, it usually does). Ransomware, camera recorders and BitLocker are classified as forensic work here, and are paid upfront once you accept the fixed quote.
We do not take mobile phones or tablets, or any items with memory soldered onto the logic board. Calling 0800 689 0668 will quickly determine which category your device is in. Sheringham, West Runton, Overstrand, Mundesley, Holt and the coast road villages in between post in the same manner as Cromer, salt and all.
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.
Diagnosis costs nothing, a fixed price is written down, and in most cases you will only be charged if we recover your data. Online or by phone.