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Data Recovery Cost

No guesswork and no call-centre estimates. Most Sheffield recoveries land in one of a handful of fixed bands, and you get your own figure in writing after a free diagnostic — before a single file is touched. Every price below is plus VAT.

The diagnostic never costs a penny — online or at our Leeds location. You only ever pay a fixed quote you've approved, and logical recoveries are no fix, no fee.

// what you'll pay

Clear prices, banded by device

Data recovery isn't priced by how urgent it feels — it's priced by the device and the fault. Nearly every job we quote for a Sheffield customer fits one of the bands below, and the exact figure is fixed in writing once the free diagnostic is done. Everything here is plus VAT.

£250 + VAT

USB sticks, plus SD, microSD and CompactFlash cards — the flash memory is read and your files rebuilt from it.

£300 + VAT

A single hard drive or SSD from a laptop, desktop, Mac or external caddy — NVMe blades sit in the same band.

From £500 + VAT

RAID sets, NAS boxes and servers. Each member disk is imaged on its own and the array rebuilt, so the total follows the drive count.

£400 + VAT

CCTV and DVR recorder disks — lifting footage back off a surveillance or security recorder.

£400 + VAT

BitLocker decryption — opening a healthy encrypted drive once you hand us the recovery key.

£800 + VAT

A full forensic investigation with a written report; a leaner report-free forensic image and deleted-file extraction is £400 + VAT.

By device: a single hard drive or SSD recovery is £300 + VAT (NVMe included); RAID, NAS and server work starts from £500 + VAT; CCTV / DVR recorders and BitLocker unlocks are £400 + VAT; and a standard forensic case is £800 + VAT with a report. Begin with a free diagnostic to get a written price of your own.

// what drives the price

What pushes a job into a higher band

The band you land in comes down to the media and the kind of failure — not the deadline. Three things decide it:

// diagnostic & no fix, no fee

The free diagnostic, and how no fix no fee works

Every recovery opens with a free diagnostic — both the quick online read-out and the full bench diagnostic at our Leeds location cost nothing. Out of it comes one fixed written quote, and the only call you make is whether to approve that single figure.

No fix, no fee is for logical recoveries only — deleted, formatted or corrupt data, or a healthy drive your system simply won't show. If those files don't come back, you owe nothing.

Where a drive has electronic, mechanical, physical, water or fire damage, the fix is invasive — a replacement PCB or controller, head or motor work, a NAND chip-off, or service-area and firmware access — so 50% of the quote is payable upfront for the donor parts and lab time, with the rest due only once your data is back.

Forensic work — CCTV / DVR, BitLocker unlocks and ransomware jobs included — is paid upfront in full. A standard forensic investigation with a report is £800 + VAT; the report-free forensic imaging and deleted-file service is £400 + VAT.

Post or courier your media to our Leeds location and the free diagnostic is finished within 2 working days of it landing — so finding out exactly where you stand costs nothing.

// worked examples

Real jobs, and what they cost

Four everyday recoveries and how the price and policy fall out — your own figure is always confirmed in writing after the free diagnostic.

An emptied recycle bin on a working external drive

Nothing physically wrong, just deleted files — a logical £300 + VAT job on no fix, no fee terms, so if the data doesn't come back you pay nothing.

A hard drive that started ticking after a knock

A dropped disk that now ticks needs head and motor work with donor parts in the clean room. £300 + VAT, but as mechanical damage half is payable upfront and the balance only on success.

A five-bay server array that won't mount

A RAID 5 that dropped a disk and then failed is imaged one member at a time and rebuilt virtually. From £500 + VAT, following the disk count; a straight logical rebuild is no fix, no fee.

Footage needed from a shop's DVR

A CCTV recorder disk pulled after an incident is forensic work at £400 + VAT, paid upfront, with the footage and timeline exported for you.

// related services

Also recovered here

// data recovery cost questions

Common questions

A standard single hard drive or SSD recovery is £300 + VAT — laptop, desktop, Mac or external, and NVMe blades at the same price. It's a fixed figure confirmed in writing after your free diagnostic, and logical recoveries carry no fix, no fee.
It does. The online read-out and the full engineer's diagnostic at our Leeds location are both free. We tell you what's recoverable and hand you one fixed quote before any work begins — you're never billed simply for finding out.
On logical recoveries — deleted, formatted or corrupt data, or a healthy drive the system can't see — no fix, no fee means there's nothing to pay if it can't be done. Drives with electronic, mechanical, physical, water or fire damage need invasive work, so 50% is payable upfront, and forensic jobs are paid upfront in full.
RAID, NAS and server recovery starts at £500 + VAT and is quoted per disk, since every member is imaged before the array is rebuilt. A standard forensic investigation is £800 + VAT with a report (a report-free image-and-extract service is £400 + VAT), while CCTV / DVR and BitLocker work is £400 + VAT — all forensic work is paid upfront.
Every figure is quoted plus VAT. The fixed quote we confirm in writing after the free diagnostic sets out the recovery price and the VAT separately, with nothing hidden, and you approve it before we start.
Start a free diagnostic online, or post your media to our Leeds location. Once our engineers have assessed it — usually inside 2 working days of arrival — you'll have one fixed written quote for your own device and fault, to accept or decline as you wish.

Know your price before you commit. Start free.

The diagnostic is free and the quote is fixed in writing — you only decide once the number is in front of you.

// getting your device to us

Post or courier your device — it's simple

Most customers post or courier their media to us.

Sending a drive from a computer, laptop, MacBook, iMac, CCTV / DVR or server? Please remove the internal hard drive or SSD and send us just the drive — we don't provide an internal drive-removal service. We don't recover storage soldered to a motherboard (e.g. Apple Silicon Macs and some thin laptops) — only drives that can be removed and sent to us.

  • Wrap the device in bubble wrap or a padded envelope — no need to include cables or power supplies.
  • Print and enclose the booking-in & shipping form (PDF) with your name, phone number and a brief description of what happened.
  • Send by Royal Mail Special Delivery or any tracked courier for full insurance in transit.
  • Prefer to hand it over in person? You can drop it in at reception at the address shown, Mon–Fri 9:00am–5:30pm.
// send your device to your nearest location

Leeds Data Recovery

17th Floor, The Pinnacle
Albion Street
Leeds, LS1 5AA

↓ Print the booking-in & shipping form (PDF)

Mark the package for the attention of Leeds Data Recovery and we'll call you as soon as we diagnose your media.

Not sure what to send? Call 0800 689 0668 first or use the free online diagnostic.