One freephone number, one mailbox, and engineers on the other end of both. Say what the device is and what it started doing, and you will hear back the same working day with a view on what is likely recoverable, which price band it lands in, and how to get it to Manchester safely. 0800 689 0668, Mon–Fri 9:00am–5:30pm.
Asking costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Money only enters the conversation once a written figure has been put in front of you and you have said yes to it.
Four fields, then an engineer rings you. Put the device and the symptom in the box and skip the formalities.
An engineer will ring you back before the working day is out (Mon–Fri 9:00am–5:30pm). Anything that genuinely cannot wait is better rung through on 0800 689 0668.
Mon–Fri 9:00am–5:30pm. Costs nothing from a mobile or a landline, and rings through to people who spend their day on failed storage.
Manchester Data Recovery
Manchester Data Recoverywww.manchester-datarecovery.co.uk
Write Manchester Data Recovery on the label and slip your name and number inside the box. Two ways in: a tracked, insured postal service, or a courier you book yourself. Liverpool to that door is about 35 miles of M62, so a parcel handed over this afternoon is usually being logged tomorrow morning. What does not exist is a van coming to you or a counter in the city to walk into.
If it is still screwed into a laptop, tower, Mac, server or recorder, the drive has to come out first. Send that on its own. Machines are not stripped at this bench, and flash soldered directly to a logic board, which is every Apple Silicon Mac and a handful of very slim laptops, cannot be lifted off at all.
Prefer it in writing? support@manchester-datarecovery.co.uk is where both forms on this site deliver, and it is read by the bench rather than by a marketing department.
Print the booking-in and shipping sheet, fill it in, and lay it on top of the packing. That sheet is what puts a job number against your device within minutes of the box being opened.
↓ Shipping and booking-in form (PDF)
↓ Terms and conditions (PDF)
Two minutes on the free online diagnostic gets you a read-out: device, maker, symptom, then the likely fault, the thing to do this minute, and the band it falls into. All of that before anything leaves your desk.
A firm stopped dead by a server, a RAID or a NAS should say so on the telephone. The job is flagged before the box arrives and its assessment moves up the bench queue. The bands do not change for it: £300 + VAT covers one drive or SSD, arrays open at £500 + VAT.
Nothing here is designed to be mysterious. This is the whole route a job takes, in order, with the two points where the decision is yours marked as clearly as we can mark them.
By telephone, by form or by email, whichever suits. What is wanted is the device, the symptom and the moment it changed. Two sentences is plenty to be going on with.
Same working day. You get the probable fault, the price band it belongs to, and a straight answer on whether posting it is worth your while at all.
Bare media, padded box, tracked and insured, with the printed booking-in sheet laid on top. Cables and caddies stay at home; they are no use at this end.
The parcel is logged against a job number and you are told it landed. From there the media sits in the lab rather than on a desk.
Two working days after arrival, never faster. Electronics, mechanics, firmware, media and file system are all judged, and out of that comes one fixed figure.
Accept it and the work starts. Refuse it and the media is posted back. Nothing is charged for reaching that point, and no figure moves after you have agreed it.
What you pay is decided by two things only: the sort of media it is, and what has actually gone wrong with it. Urgency in your voice does not move a figure. Nor does the value of what is on the disk, which is a trick this trade has a reputation for and which nobody here plays.
Add VAT to every line above; it appears on the quote as a figure of its own rather than being folded in. Nothing is charged for postage in either direction beyond the carriage you buy yourself, and the encrypted media your files come home on is included.
Then there is who carries the risk. Logical faults keep their no fix, no fee footing, meaning deleted or formatted files, a file system that has come apart, or hardware in perfect health that the machine refuses to acknowledge. Recover nothing on one of those and you are invoiced nothing. That footing changes where the bench finds damage to the electronics, the mechanics or the media itself, along with anything scorched or soaked: donor parts get bought and clean-bench hours get spent whether or not the platters cooperate, so half the quoted figure is settled first and the balance only once your files are back. Forensic casework, recorder disks and chip-level work are settled in full before they begin. All of it is written on the quote in front of you, and the data recovery cost page explains what sits behind each band.
Almost every job on this bench came in by tracked, insured post. It is the calmest way to move a drive that is already struggling, and a parcel handed in anywhere on Merseyside usually reaches the bench the following working day.
Still screwed inside a laptop, tower, MacBook, iMac, server or a CCTV recorder? Take the drive out and post that on its own. We do not strip machines here, and any computer shop will do it in a few minutes. The one job nobody can take on is flash soldered straight to a logic board, as on Apple Silicon Macs and a handful of very slim laptops: if the storage will not unbolt, there is nothing to send.
↓ Print the shipping & booking-in form (PDF)
Address it to Manchester Data Recovery. It is roughly 35 miles from Liverpool along the M62 if you fancy the run, and next working day by tracked post if you do not. We ring or email the moment it is booked in, and the free diagnostic closes 2 working days after that.
Not sure what belongs in the parcel? Call 0800 689 0668 before you tape it shut, or step through the free online diagnostic first.
Run the wizard. Two minutes, no details needed until the end, and a read-out that tells you whether posting it is worth your time.