There are four easy stages in this process: identify the device type, establish the make of the device, describe the symptoms, and then receive an engineer's immediate read-out of what is likely to have caused the failure, what action should be taken right now to protect against further loss and how long the job may take. Provide your contact information and an engineer will confirm everything personally as soon as possible.
The diagnostic is always free, both online and on the bench. In most cases you only pay if we recover your data, and in all instances you only pay a fixed quote that you have approved before the recovery work starts.
Once the initial free diagnostic is completed, your exact quote is provided to you in writing, and it costs nothing to find out. Where a logical recovery is involved (deleted, formatted or corrupt data), you only pay if we recover your data. Where electronic, physical, mechanical, water or fire damage exists, the device needs invasive work, so 50% of the quote is due upfront; this is always set out in writing before anything is touched.
There's no collection service. Your drive or device will reach us in one of three ways: posted to us tracked and insured, sent in with your own courier, or dropped off at the Leeds lab's reception, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no appointment needed).
Address for posting: Leeds Data Recovery, 17th Floor, The Pinnacle, Albion Street, Leeds, LS1 5AA, marked clearly for the attention of Leeds Data Recovery. Downloads: ↓ shipping form (PDF) · ↓ terms & conditions (PDF)
Just leave your details and an engineer will call you back as soon as possible to outline next steps and give you honest odds, with no obligation.
An engineer will review it and contact you back ASAP. Ready to send the device already? Post it to 17th Floor, The Pinnacle, Albion Street, Leeds, LS1 5AA, marked for the attention of Leeds Data Recovery.
Would you prefer to talk it through? Then feel free to call 0800 689 0668 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm), as describing the fault over the phone works just as well.
Most jobs fall into one of three fixed price bands, and prices depend on the type of device, not panic levels. After the free diagnostic, you will receive one fixed figure in writing for recovering your data. For logical recoveries (deleted data, formatted drives and so on), you only pay if we recover your data, whereas drives with electronic, mechanical, physical, water or fire damage need invasive work, so 50% of the quoted price is payable upfront (see below).
USB sticks and memory cards: SD, microSD and CF.
A single hard disk or SSD, internal or external, from a laptop, desktop or Mac.
RAID, NAS and servers: each drive imaged and rebuilt as needed, priced to the work required.
A CCTV/DVR recorder drive is a fixed £400 + VAT, and a standard forensic investigation is £800 + VAT, both payable 100% upfront once you accept the fixed quote (larger cases are scoped and quoted in writing). For logical recoveries you only pay if we recover your data: that covers deleted, formatted or corrupt data, or a healthy drive the system simply can't see. That does not apply to drives with electronic, mechanical, physical, water or fire damage: these drives need invasive work (a new PCB or controller, head or motor repair, NAND chip-off or firmware/service-area access), so 50% of the quoted price is payable upfront for the donor parts and lab time. Exceptional cases (badly burnt boards, snapped media and large multi-disk rebuilds) are priced higher and always quoted in writing first, after the free diagnostic.
Once your device arrives at our lab, an engineer carries out a real engineering assessment, not simply a five-minute software scan. Within two working days you'll know:
Board, bridge and power-circuit checks: is the fault electrical, and does the unique ROM remain intact?
Assessing head, motor and platter condition before the drive is ever asked to work hard.
Service-area and translator inspection on the PC-3000 bench: the invisible faults that software can't detect.
A controlled read assessment with hardware imaging equipment: how much of the surface or NAND is genuinely readable.
What is intact, what is corrupted, and which of your actual files and folders are available for recovery.
One price for the recovery, based solely on the real fault identified during the engineer's diagnostic. Accept it and go ahead, or decline it, with nothing owed either way.
Our customers get a quote first before sending their media to us, either by telephone on 0800 689 0668 or by completing our free online diagnostic. Once a customer has their quote, they post their media to us, tracked and insured.
Sending a drive from a computer, laptop, MacBook, iMac, CCTV / DVR or server? Please remove the hard drive or SSD from your machine and send us just the drive; we do not offer an internal drive-removal service. If you have a server or RAID system, please send us every disk, each clearly labelled with its bay. We cannot recover data from storage that is soldered directly onto the motherboard (for example Apple Silicon Macs and some thin laptops), so we need removable drives to be sent to us. If you are unsure which kind you have, ring us first.
↓ Print the booking-in & shipping form (PDF)
Mark your package for the attention of Leeds Data Recovery and we will contact you as soon as we have diagnosed your media.
Unsure about what to send? Call us first on 0800 689 0668 or complete our free online diagnostic.
First, get a quote either by calling us on 0800 689 0668 or using the free online diagnostic tool. Next, pack up your unit, include your name and number, then post it tracked to our receiving lab in Leeds.