The biggest town in Scotland may have never required the city of Glasgow's permission for many things, but when your family's archives on a drive or the company's financial records are no longer responding, the twenty-minute drive along the M8 will take you directly to a confirmed diagnosis and a fixed price.
If you are travelling from Paisley, the distance is not far at all; approximately 15–20 minutes along the M8 to Charing Cross. If you prefer to take public transport, the trip is by train from Gilmour Street to Glasgow Central station, and it's just a few minutes' walk to Tay House on Bath St. Don't have time for either of these options? No problem. Post your items insured and trackable via any post office in Paisley and they will arrive the very next morning. For a drive that's clicking, a padded envelope sent via post can be equally as effective as having it sitting in the car beside you.
Files coming in from Paisley look like what they are: a mix of university dissertation laptops, order books and CAD drawings from the trading estates, and 40 years of family photos on externals that finally gave out. The mill town's practical attitude is also evident: no one wants to have to deal with anything dramatic. They just want their files back.
No matter what device arrives, the prices do not change based upon your postcode. There is always a free diagnostic first. The fixed price of the recovery will be agreed to in writing prior to any work. The price is £250 + VAT for cards and sticks. Single drives cost £300 + VAT. RAID systems, NAS devices, and server hardware cost from £500 + VAT. In addition, in most cases you only pay if we have recovered your lost data. All data recovery jobs are completed in-house by our own employees (engineers), and your data never leaves the UK.
Yes, after we provide you with a quote, our counter at Tay House will accept walk-in customers Monday to Friday (9am–5:30pm) without an appointment. Paisley is only a short trip up the M8. So if your drive dies during the course of the working day, just power it off before driving to us and bring it as it is. Then we can usually run the free diagnostic on your drive the same day.
It is safe if it's sensibly packaged as the powered off drive will be able to handle the postal trip much better than the repeated attempts to access it. Wrap it in about two inches of padding, send it via a courier who offers insurance and tracking on their services and add your name and phone number to the package. Hundreds of failed hard disks are sent this way. The courier has never been the cause of any problems for us.
Please call us or use our form for an estimate prior to posting or dropping off your device. Next, shut down your device and wrap it in padding as much as possible and then either go to the counter at Tay House, 300 Bath Street (no appointment required, Mon–Fri 9am–5:30pm) or, if you prefer, send it via post from Paisley with insurance/tracking. Either way, we will diagnose your broken hard drive free of charge and provide you a written quote prior to making any decisions.
In every instance, all data recovery services, both diagnosis and imaging/data recovery, are performed at our Glasgow laboratory regardless of which city/region the client resides in.
Do not use your drive again. Each additional time you use your drive increases the risk that the remaining recoverable data may be overwritten. A faulty drive's head(s) are also at greater risk of coming into contact with its platter(s). If the system remains active, turn it off safely and then leave it turned off.
Do not run any data recovery software on the original hard disk. Most consumer data recovery programs create their own file indexes on the hard disk being scanned. While this typically does not harm a functioning hard disk containing deleted files, once the hard disk contains bad sector(s) or is mechanically failed, it will limit what was possible through data recovery efforts.
Do not open your drive. Even a small amount of dust entering a drive can damage the surface of the drive after only a few revolutions. If it has already been opened, tell us: it changes our approach, not our willingness to help.
Remove the drive where you can. Please send just the hard drive or SSD. We are not able to accept full computers (laptops/desktops). All computer shops can remove the internal drive from a system within minutes. External drives are the exception and need to be sent complete. Please include the external case/enclosure when sending the drive. This is because many external enclosures contain the bridge board which contains the encryption key. If the drive is sent without the case, then the drive will appear blank/unformatted.
Our diagnostic is free and is a real diagnostic. Our process involves putting your drive on the bench, not through a script, and identifying the type of fault. At this time, we determine if the media on your drive is stable enough to be imaged, and what information may actually be recovered before we discuss cost.
You get a fixed price in writing before work begins. Not a price range or estimate that changes once the job has started. Once you see the fixed price, you decide based upon the price you see. In most cases, no payment is due if we cannot recover your data.
We image first then repair from that copy. Your original drive is read only once using the least invasive method possible with the equipment. Every single repair operation is performed on the image of your original drive. Using this method ensures that your original drive is never damaged further than necessary.
Every step of recovery is done in-house. Your drive will never leave our facility while being worked on. Your data will always remain within the United Kingdom. Once your recovery is complete, you will receive a list of files found on your drive so that you may review them prior to receiving your completed recovery. 30 days after you acknowledge receipt of your completed recovery, all copies of your data stored on our servers will be deleted securely.