North Walsham sits between the Broads and the gas terminals, which makes for an unusual mix of failed drives. All of them travel the same way: tracked post down to the bench, then a straight answer.
North Walsham jobs are diagnosed free. One fixed written quote before any work begins — no fix, no fee on most recoveries.
NR28 is a quietly busy postcode. To the east are the Broads and the boatyards, and with them a steady flow of memory cards and externals full of photographs taken from the water — herons, sails, sunsets and grandchildren, none of it backed up. To the north is Bacton, where the gas terminals and the contractors that service them generate survey data, inspection records and site laptops that matter a great deal for a few weeks and then matter absolutely for a decade. In between is the town itself: the market place, the college, the trades and the small firms whose accounts and customer records live on a single machine in a back office. The Paston family wrote their letters from a few miles away and those survived six hundred years, which is more than can be said for most external drives.
There is nothing to arrange and nobody to wait in for. Wrap the bare drive or tape the card into folded stiff card, post it tracked and insured, and it is at the bench the next working day. Your own courier is fine if you use one — you book it, you pay for it. The desk will also take a device in person, weekdays between 9am and 5:30pm, at Cambridge Data Recovery, Compass House, Vision Park, Chivers Way, Cambridge CB24 9AD, if a trip that way is happening anyway. What we do not do is collect, from here or anywhere else.
The diagnostic is free and complete inside 2 working days of arrival, and it ends with one fixed written figure and a realistic account of what is likely to come back. Logical faults run no fix, no fee. Where a drive must be opened in clean air, or its board rebuilt after impact, an electrical fault, water or fire, half the quoted figure is paid before that stage and the rest only on success. Ransomware, camera recorders and BitLocker are forensic work, settled in advance and in full — and if it is ransomware, the answer to the obvious question is no, never pay it.
The exclusions are short: phones, tablets, and any memory soldered down onto a logic board. Everything else, from a card out of a bridge-mounted camera to a small office server, starts with a free call to 0800 689 0668. Worstead, Stalham, Happisburgh, Mundesley, Wroxham's northern edge and the Broads-side villages post in on the same terms.
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.