Bootle stands behind the north docks, and the boxes coming off Seaforth are only half the traffic. The rest is paperwork, and the paperwork is all files now, which is why a dead disc in a forwarding office can leave a load sitting on the quay while somebody hunts for a customs entry.
Bootle jobs are diagnosed free. One fixed figure in writing before any work starts, and £300 + VAT covers a single drive or SSD.
L20 is a working postcode and the parcels show it. Freight forwarders and customs agents along the dock road, hauliers with yards off Regent Road, warehousing and groupage operators around the container terminal, the big government offices on The Strand, and the traders in the shopping centre and along Stanley Road with tills, back-office machines and camera recorders. Behind all of that are the houses in Bootle itself, Litherland, Orrell and Netherton, where an external drive holds the photographs and nothing else does.
A lot of people here search for computer repair when what they actually need is data recovery, and the two are genuinely different trades. A repair shop replaces the part that has failed and hands the machine back working, which is exactly right when the fault is a power supply, a screen or a battery. When the part that has failed is the drive itself, the same approach fixes the computer and loses the contents, and a reinstall of Windows over the top makes what was there harder to reach. If the files matter more than the machine, stop before anything is swapped, reinstalled or reformatted, and ring first.
Getting it here is one parcel and no arrangements. Only the bare drive travels, so it needs to come out of the tower or laptop first; wrap it so nothing rattles and post it tracked and insured to Manchester Data Recovery, Peter House, Oxford Street, Manchester M1 5AN, which is next working day from Bootle. If you would rather use a courier your firm already books, do that and pay them direct. Nothing is collected here, from Bootle or anywhere else, and there is no counter to walk into.
Diagnosis is free, takes up to 2 working days from arrival, and ends with the fault named and one fixed written figure. Any one hard drive or SSD is £300 + VAT, cards and USB pen drives are £250 + VAT, arrays and servers begin at £500 + VAT and climb with the disc count, CCTV and DVR recorders are £400 + VAT, BitLocker is £400 + VAT and a forensic investigation with a report is £800 + VAT. Logical faults come under no fix, no fee. Mechanical, electronic, board-level and chip-level work, and anything water or fire damaged, takes 50% of the quoted price up front with the rest payable only on success. Seaforth, Waterloo's edge, Litherland, Ford and Netherton all use the same route, on 0800 689 0668, Mon-Fri 9:00am-5:30pm.
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.
The diagnosis costs nothing, the figure is written down, and a single drive or SSD is £300 + VAT.