First, say no to Windows
If Windows offers to format, initialise or scan and fix the drive, click Cancel. Then shut the PC down. Each of those options writes to the disk, and writing is what destroys recoverable files.
If the drive is clicking or grinding, skip the tidy shutdown and switch off at the wall. And do not swap the circuit board with one from an identical drive. Modern boards carry calibration data unique to the drive they left the factory with, so a transplant rarely works and can do damage.
What goes wrong with desktop drives
- Power surge or power cut
- Accidental formatting or deletion
- Files overwritten by mistake
- Software or file corruption
- Virus or spyware
- Clicking or grinding drive
- Drive not recognised by the BIOS
- Failed circuit board (PCB)
- Corrupt firmware
- Overheating
- Drive dropped during an upgrade or a move
- Fire or water damage
Software fault or hardware fault
Formatting, deletion, corruption and viruses are logical faults. The drive still works, so recovery is done with software. Clicking, a dead board, bad firmware and anything involving fire, water or a fall are physical faults. Those drives are opened in an ISO Class 5 (Class 100) clean room, sometimes with parts from a donor drive.
Desktops sit on the mains all day, so surges are a bigger risk here than with laptops. A surge often takes out the drive’s circuit board and leaves the platters, and your files, intact.
Guide prices for desktop recovery
| Job | Guide price |
|---|---|
| Initial consultation | Free |
| Logical recovery, up to two hours’ work | £99 + VAT |
| Logical recovery needing 24 to 48 hours of work | £150 + VAT (1TB) to £250 + VAT (4TB) |
| Clean-room diagnostic for a physically failed drive | £79 + VAT (you supply the donor drive) |
| Physical recovery on a single drive | £450 + VAT (labour, plus a donor drive if needed) |
A PC with two drives striped as RAID 0, or any other array, is priced as a RAID recovery. Every job gets a firm quote, and it is no recovery, no charge. The rest is on the data recovery price list.
Systems, drives and getting a tower to us
We recover from Windows XP onwards, plus macOS, Linux, UNIX and Novell, on hard drives and SSDs from Samsung, Fujitsu, Seagate, Hitachi GST, Toshiba and Western Digital.
You do not have to carry a tower across London. We collect and return free of charge, a technician can visit your home or office, or you can bring just the drive to 68A North End Road, W14. If the PC has other problems, our computer repair service can sort those out, and desktop SSDs have their own notes on the SSD recovery page.
Questions people ask
Windows says the disk needs to be formatted. Should I do it?
No. That message means Windows cannot read the file system, not that the files are gone. Formatting writes a new, empty file system over the top. Cancel, shut the PC down and get the drive to us for a free consultation.
The BIOS cannot see my hard drive. Is it dead?
It has a physical fault, most likely in the circuit board, firmware or heads, but that does not mean the data is lost. A physical recovery on a single drive is £450 + VAT as a guide, and you get a firm quote before we start.
Do I need to bring the whole computer?
No. The drive is all we need for the recovery, so bring just that if you are happy removing it. If not, we collect the whole PC free of charge and take the drive out ourselves.
What if you cannot recover anything?
Then there is no charge for the recovery. The initial consultation is free and the quote is firm, so you know the cost before any work begins.