Diss has a six-acre mere in the middle of the town and a fast train to London from the end of it, and runs both without fuss. Failed drives get the same treatment here: posted in, looked at carefully, and then a straight answer.
Diss jobs are diagnosed free. A single written quotation is given prior to starting any work, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.
Located on the county line, with the River Waveney creating the divide between Norfolk and Suffolk, Diss receives work from both sides of it. IP22 sends us small-business drives from the business park and the units off Sandy Lane, laptops from people who commute to Liverpool Street from the station and keep everything locally because the train Wi-Fi is what it is, and a consistent flow of household externals holding photographs, family history research and many years' worth of scanned paperwork. A market has been held in Diss since the thirteenth century, and as a result the town has its own sense of self-sufficiency; residents will often try a few things themselves before ringing, which is fine, provided the drive is not making a noise while they do it.
Sending it is the easy part. Get a quote by phone or with our free online diagnostic, then wrap the bare drive so that it does not move and post it tracked and insured; it will be on the bench the next working day from Diss or any village counter around it. If you have your own courier, book and pay for them to send it yourself; it is all the same to the engineer opening the box. If you are driving to Cambridgeshire, a device can be left at the desk Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed, at Cambridge Data Recovery, Compass House, Vision Park, Chivers Way, Cambridge CB24 9AD. We do no collections of any type, and we would rather say that twice than have someone waiting.
The free diagnostic takes up to 2 working days to complete from arrival, and produces a single written figure which then stays put. On logical work, you only pay if we recover your data: failure to recover your files results in no charge. Where mechanical, electrical, water or fire damage means opening the drive or rebuilding its board, half the quote is due before that stage, with the remaining balance only due upon success. Everything in the forensic band (ransomware, camera recorders, BitLocker volumes) is paid upfront once you accept the fixed quote. If you have been affected by ransomware, do not pay the criminals responsible; there are usually better routes back, and we will tell you honestly whether yours is one of them.
Phones are out, tablets are out, and so is any memory soldered down onto a mainboard. These are the limits, and the freephone will confirm which side of them your device falls on before you spend anything on postage. Harleston, Eye, Botesdale, Scole, Roydon, Burston and the Waveney villages send parcels on the same terms, whichever county they are technically in.
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.