Plain figures apply to data recovery services throughout Swindon and Wiltshire. Nearly all jobs fall into one of six fixed price bands, and we will give you the cost of your job in writing after the free diagnostic, not once the work has been completed. All prices quoted are plus VAT.
You won't incur a fee to find out. Our free diagnostic is available either online or by visiting us at our Oxford laboratory. The only charge will be a written quote that you have accepted before we start the work, and on logical failures, in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.
Whatever level of urgency there is with your job, our costs depend on the type of device and the failure condition (not the urgency). Almost all jobs we receive from Swindon and Wiltshire will fit within one of the six bands outlined below, and your exact cost is always given in writing in a quotation produced after we complete your free diagnostic. Each band is plus VAT.
SD, microSD and CompactFlash cards as well as USB pen drives, where the files are recovered straight from the flash memory.
A single hard drive or SSD, including the ones that come out of laptops, desktops, Macs or external enclosures, and NVMe blades are priced the same.
The price for RAID sets, NAS units and servers is always based on the number of disks in the set. The reason for this is that each individual disk needs to be imaged separately as part of the rebuild process.
CCTV and DVR recorder disks, where we get the incident footage back off the surveillance equipment.
Decrypting BitLocker drives, which means opening up a sound encrypted drive with the recovery key you give us.
The standard forensic investigation, and this includes the report. The forensic binary image and deleted file service is £400 + VAT instead, but it does not include a report.
For example, the cost of an individual hard drive or solid-state disk (SSD) is £300 + VAT, and an NVMe device costs the same. The cost of a RAID, NAS or server set is from £500 + VAT and it goes up depending on the number of disks. The cost for a single CCTV/DVR disk is £400 + VAT, the cost to unlock a single BitLocker drive is £400 + VAT, and the standard forensic investigation (£800 + VAT) includes the report. Your own written figure starts with a free diagnostic.
The cost has nothing to do with how urgent the job is, and what decides which band it goes into is:
Every case starts with a free diagnostic. The online diagnostic doesn't cost anything and the engineer's bench check at our Oxford lab is free as well. Either one gives you a single fixed quote in writing, and after that it's up to you whether you go ahead.
On logical work, in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. That covers deleted or formatted files, corrupted files and also a healthy drive that won't show up.
If there is evidence on the bench of electronic, mechanical, physical, water or fire damage, 50% of the quoted cost becomes payable before we start the invasive recovery stage. This is because recovery methods such as using donor PCBs, swapping heads, NAND chip-off and firmware-level repairs use up parts and head-swap bench time. The other 50% is only payable if we recover your data.
The forensic work, that is CCTV/DVR footage, BitLocker unlocking and ransomware cases, is all paid upfront once you accept the fixed quote. For example, a standard forensic investigation costs £800 + VAT and comes with a detailed written report. There is also a binary image along with extracted deleted files (£400 + VAT), but this does not include a written report.
You can get a quote first, by phone or with the free online diagnostic. Then send the media to our Oxford lab next day by tracked and insured post or courier, or drop it off at reception, which is under an hour up the A420 from Swindon (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, no appointment needed). We will complete the free diagnostic within two working days of it arriving, so you find out exactly where you stand and it doesn't cost you anything.
This is what we normally see from Wiltshire in an ordinary week, along with the band and policy that applied to each case. Your total cost is always agreed in writing before we undertake any work.
Logical work on an emptied folder for a Marlborough photographer, with no hardware failure. The band charge for doing this kind of job is £300 + VAT, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.
Head damage means using donor components and also head-swap bench time. However, the band price (£300 + VAT) stays the same and is split into two payments, with half paid upfront to cover the invasive part of the process and the rest only payable if the files are successfully recovered.
Four disks from an Old Town office were imaged one at a time and then put back together in software. Depending on the number of member disks, prices for this begin from £500 + VAT. If it is purely a logical rebuild, in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.
Recorder disks are charged as forensic work at £400 + VAT, paid upfront once you accept the fixed quote, and the relevant clips are exported and documented ready to be handed over to you.
You will receive a free diagnostic and a fixed price written quote, and all work needs your approval before it's done, so nothing is charged until you authorise it.
Most of our customers get a quote first, either by phone or through the free online diagnostic, and after that they post their media to us or send it by courier.
Wanting to send a drive from a computer, laptop, MacBook, iMac, CCTV/DVR or server? Please take the internal hard disk or SSD out and send us only the drive itself (with a server, send every disk, each labelled with its bay), as we don't offer a drive removal service. We do not recover storage that is soldered into the motherboard, for example on a Mac with a T2 or Apple Silicon chip and some very slim laptops, only drives that can be taken out and sent to us. If you're not sure which kind you have, ring us first before sending anything.
↓ Print the booking-in & shipping form (PDF)
Please mark the package for the attention of Oxford Data Recovery and we will ring you as soon as we have finished diagnosing it.
If you're unsure about what you should be sending, please ring 0800 689 0668 first or fill in our free online diagnostic.