The geographical nature of data recovery in Scotland can be simplified to the single truth that a powered off hard disk is easy to move. Get a quote, then post your damaged hard disk with shipping insurance from anywhere in Scotland; it will likely arrive in Glasgow by morning. We diagnose at no cost, provide you with an estimate written down, and recover your files without them ever leaving the UK.
Our route map is short & sweet. If you are based in the west of Scotland (Glasgow, Ayrshire, Lanarkshire and the Clyde towns), Tay House, 300 Bath Street offers a walk-in counter Monday to Friday, 9am–5:30pm, once you have a quote, without an appointment. Otherwise use Royal Mail’s Special Delivery service or any other insured, tracked courier service of your choice, posting from Inverness, Lerwick or Kelso by the final collection time, and it will be with us the next working morning.
Because people living on Scottish islands are usually curious about how reliable the tracking service is for parcels they send, they have asked: Yes, services tracking parcels sent from Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides operate equally effectively, occasionally a day later than usual when being delivered; however, there will be no added days of risk. A drive that is powered off and padded in two inches of wrap does not know if it is travelling across the Minch or the M8 motorway. Because what ages a drive isn't the miles it travels, but rather how many times it has been turned on, the safest action an individual can take should their hard drive fail is turn it off and allow the postal service to handle the rest of the journey.
What comes in is like the country itself: croft-office laptops with subsidy records. Fishing and marine businesses holding seasons of paperwork. Highland tourism operators with terabytes of scenery. Distillery & estate archives. University machines from all four ancient seats. Family externals from Wick to Wigtown that hold photographs that could never be replaced. Everything is worked on in-house in the UK by our own engineers. It is never outsourced or sent abroad, and the terms are the same whatever the postmark.
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.
Usually, yes, twice over. First of all there's safety in the parcel. A drive is turned off and fully padded; so a drive sent by "Special Delivery" (powered down) from Inverness or Ullapool will have no problems. Second of all there are risks associated with "local" options that use some software on bad hardware or secretly send the harder tasks to someone else. Send it once, to where the job gets done.
They don't: these are the bands (£250 cards, £300 single drive, from £500 multi-disk, all + VAT) and in most cases you will only pay if we recover your data, no matter where in the UK you live. Occasionally island post can have an extra day of travel time; however, the parcel arrives in exactly the same condition. Track & insure it (and tuck a copy of your name and telephone number into it), and that's the end of geography.
Your data will remain within the United Kingdom. We take this as an absolute commitment and you should too when selecting a company to deal with. We document the chain of custody and all recovery activities undertaken in-house by our team of engineers (there are no third-party labs) and we do not sub-contract anything outside of the UK, nor do we "escalate" your data to a lab overseas for analysis. Your drive comes to one bench and goes home from the same one.
And no matter where in Scotland the drive starts from, the numbers do not move: the data recovery cost is set in writing by the end of our free look (£300 + VAT for single drives, from £500 for a multiple array) before anything is attempted.
Before sending in or dropping off your device, please contact us to obtain a quotation via telephone or complete our on-line quotation form. Once you have obtained a quotation we would ask that you first power down your device. Next, take care to pad your device well when packing it. Finally, choose how to get your device to us: either bring it into Tay House, 300 Bath Street, where there is no need to book an appointment during Mon–Fri 9am–5:30pm; or send it to us using insured, trackable postal services from anywhere within Scotland. Regardless of which method you use, we will diagnose your device at no cost to you and provide a written estimate 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.