Home / Free Diagnostics

Free online diagnostic

Answer three quick questions — device, manufacturer, symptom — and get an engineer's instant read-out of the probable fault, the do's and don'ts for right now, and the usual turnaround. Add your details and an engineer will personally confirm it all ASAP.

Instant read-out Free — online & in the lab Fixed quote before any work No fix, no fee

Free at both stages — the online read-out and the bench diagnostic alike. Payment only ever happens against a fixed quote you've approved, and only when the recovery succeeds.

01 · Your device 02 · The make 03 · The symptom 04 · Read-out & your details
// step 1 of 4

Which device are we recovering?

// step 2 of 4

Who makes it?

// step 3 of 4

What is it doing — or refusing to do?

// step 4 of 4 — your engineer's read-out
// happy with the price? here's how sending it in works

Getting your device to us

Your exact quote is confirmed in writing once the free diagnostic is finished — it costs nothing to find out. No fix, no fee covers logical recoveries (deleted, formatted or corrupt data); drives with electronic, mechanical, physical, water or fire damage need invasive work, so 50% of the quote is payable upfront — always set out in writing before anything is touched.

  • Coming out of a computer, laptop, MacBook, iMac, CCTV / DVR or server? You'll need to remove the hard drive or SSD from the machine yourself and send us just the drive — we don't provide an internal drive-removal service. It's usually only a few screws. 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 drive or device in anti-static or bubble wrap and pack it snugly in a sturdy box so it can't move in transit — no need to include cables or power supplies.
  • Post it fully insured — a tracked, signed-for service is best — or drop it in person, Mon–Fri 9am–5:30pm. There's no collection service, so the device travels to us rather than us to you.
  • Print and enclose the booking-in & shipping form with your name and phone number so we can log your device the moment it lands.

Post to: Guildford Data Recovery, Building 2, Ground Floor, Guildford Business Park, Guildford, GU2 8XH — marked for the attention of Guildford Data Recovery. Downloads: ↓ shipping form (PDF) · ↓ terms & conditions (PDF)

Have an engineer confirm it — free

Pop your details below and you'll get a callback ASAP with honest odds and the next steps — nothing owed, nothing assumed.

Sorry — the form didn't send. Please ring us on 0800 689 0668 instead.

Your details go no further than answering this diagnostic request — see our privacy policy.

Diagnostic request received.

An engineer will look it over and get back to you ASAP. Ready to send the device already? Post it to Building 2, Ground Floor, Guildford Business Park, Guildford, GU2 8XH, marked for the attention of Guildford Data Recovery.

Rather talk it through? Call 0800 689 0668 (Mon–Fri 9:00am–5:30pm) — explaining the fault down the phone does the job just as well.

// what recovery costs

Straightforward, fixed pricing

Three fixed bands cover the majority of jobs — what you pay tracks the device, never the panic. After the free diagnostic, a single fixed figure goes to you in writing. Logical recoveries are no fix, no fee; drives with electronic, mechanical, physical, water or fire damage need invasive work, so 50% of the quote is payable upfront (see below).

£250 + VAT

USB sticks and memory cards — SD, microSD and CF.

£300 + VAT

A single hard drive or SSD — internal or external, laptop, desktop or Mac.

From £500 + VAT

RAID, NAS and servers — imaged and rebuilt per drive, priced to the job.

CCTV / DVR recorder drives are a fixed £400 + VAT, and a standard forensic investigation is £800 + VAT, payable 100% upfront (larger cases scoped and quoted in writing). No fix, no fee applies to logical recoveries — deleted, formatted or corrupt data, or a healthy drive the system just can't see. It does not apply to drives with electronic, mechanical, physical, water or fire damage: those need invasive work — a new PCB or controller, head/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) sit higher and are always quoted in writing first, after the free diagnostic.

// what the bench diagnostic checks

What "free diagnostic" actually covers

Your device doesn't get a five-minute software scan when it lands here — it gets a genuine engineering assessment. Inside 2 working days you'll have answers on:

01 · Power & electronics

The board, bridge and power circuits are tested first — establishing whether the fault is electrical and whether the unique ROM survived.

02 · Mechanical health

Before the drive is asked to do any hard work at all, the state of its heads, motor and platters is established.

03 · Firmware state

The PC-3000 bench inspects the service area and translator — faults that are completely invisible to software tools.

04 · Media integrity

Hardware imagers run a controlled read assessment to measure how much of the surface or NAND genuinely reads back.

05 · File-system state

A clear picture of what survived intact, what corrupted, and which of your actual files and folders can come home.

06 · Your fixed quote

A single price for the recovery, built on the real fault — take it or leave it, and either way you owe nothing.

// diagnostic questions

Common questions

Entirely — there's no charge for the online read-out, and none for the full engineer's diagnostic once your device reaches the lab either. One fixed quote is all you ever say yes or no to, and if your data can't be recovered you owe nothing.
Choose 'Other / not sure' wherever you're stuck — nothing hangs on it. What you tell us online simply gives our engineers a running start; the diagnosis proper happens on the bench inside 2 working days of your device arriving.
It reflects the honest pattern across thousands of lab jobs — every symptom is matched to its most probable fault, the immediate do's and don'ts, and a typical turnaround. Once your device is on the bench, the diagnostic pins down the precise fault and the fixed price.
Not at all — first you'll get a callback ASAP to talk everything through. Prefer to skip straight to it? Then post the device to our receiving lab.
// getting your device to us

Post your device to us — it's simple

Most customers post their media to us tracked and insured.

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 a tracked courier of your own choosing, 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

Guildford Data Recovery

Building 2, Ground Floor
Guildford Business Park
Guildford, GU2 8XH

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

Mark the package for the attention of Guildford 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.

Prefer to just send it?

Box the device up with your name and number inside, and post it by a tracked service.