Montrose has an operational harbour with many supporting businesses that simply cannot afford a week of uncertainty about a dead drive. Get a quote first, then send us your failed drive by tracked post or drop it off at our Edinburgh lab (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, no appointment needed), get it read on real equipment, and get one price in writing.
Jobs from Montrose are free to diagnose. You get a single fixed figure in writing prior to commencing your job, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.
DD10 is situated in between the Angus farming region and the North Sea, and so the parcels represent both. Businesses that provide port and marine support services, offshore and decommissioning contractors working out of the harbour, and the engineering and logistics businesses behind them, all send their job files, survey data and compliance records. Agricultural and seed businesses are located inland, and manufacturing and laboratory data comes off the industrial estates. Located along the High Street and the front are small professional practices and hospitality businesses. Then there are the typical household drives and camera cards, which include an ongoing supply from the photographers who capture the Basin and its geese each year during winter.
There are four varieties of failure, and identifying the type determines how best to proceed. Noise (a click, a tick, a beep) is mechanical. The correct response is to pull the plug on it and leave it unplugged. Power applied but no detection typically indicates a firmware, service area or board issue, and needs equipment that communicates directly with the drive underneath the USB interface. A volume that mounts but reports as RAW, empty or unformatted is a file system failure and very often a complete recovery. An SSD that simply went away was likely to have lost its mapping rather than its data. None of these will be improved by running repair utilities on it.
Get a quote first: call us or use the free online diagnostic, and then send your bare drive or SSD tracked and insured from Montrose. If you are sending a single external drive, it comes whole, in its enclosure, with its own cable and power supply. The lab will receive your drive the following working day. Alternatively, use your firm's own courier if that is easier; that booking and that charge stay yours. Or simply hand it in at the counter yourself: Edinburgh Data Recovery, 4 Redheughs Rigg, Westpoint, South Gyle, Edinburgh EH12 9DQ, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed, straight down the A90. Nothing is ever picked up from a customer on this site, so there is nothing to arrange beyond a label.
Charges for the work are determined before it starts rather than after it is finished. The diagnosis is provided free and completed within 2 working days from receipt. What you receive will always be a single fixed written price that includes VAT. On logical faults, in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Impact, electrical, water and fire damage require a 50% down payment on the quote before the mechanical or board stage, and the remaining balance is due only if we recover your data. Ransomware, CCTV and DVR recorder recovery and BitLocker volume recovery are forensic-classed, and therefore full payment is required at the start of the recovery process. Payment of a ransom is not included as part of our service. We do not accept phones or tablets. Storage soldered onto a motherboard is not accepted either. If you're not sure which kind you have, please ring us before sending. All locations in Scotland (including Ferryden, Hillside, Brechin, Edzell, Inverbervie, Friockheim and the Angus coast) are treated equally. Freephone 0800 689 0668.
Get a quote first by telephone or use our free online diagnostic. Most of what you see on this bench will then be delivered via tracked, insured post. This is one of the safest ways to move a failing drive and packages handed in at a North-East post office are normally delivered here the next working day.
Still attached to a laptop, desktop, MacBook, iMac, server or CCTV/DVR unit? Remove the hard drive or SSD first. The bare drive travels on its own; when removing disks from a server remove all the disks and label each disk by its bay. This lab does not take machines apart. Any storage that has been soldered onto a motherboard (as in T2 and Apple Silicon Macs and a couple of thin laptops) will not be worked on: if it will not unbolt, we cannot work on it. If you're not sure what type of machine you have, ring us first. Phones and tablets are also not taken on.
↓ Print the shipping & booking-in form (PDF)
Your parcel should be addressed to Edinburgh Data Recovery, approximately two and a half hours (and 130 miles) from Aberdeen via the A90; alternatively it can reach us the next working day by tracked post if this journey time / distance is prohibitive to travel. As soon as your drive has been scheduled in we will contact you.
Still unsure about what should be placed inside of the packaging? Please call us first on 0800 689 0668, or use our free online diagnostic tool to assist you in deciding which items belong inside of the packaging before sealing.
Free diagnostics, the quoted figure in writing, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. This service is available online or over the phone.