Peterhead runs on kit that gets wet, cold and knocked about, and storage is no exception to that. When the drive holding the landings data or the survey files stops, it goes south in a padded box and comes back readable.
Peterhead jobs are diagnosed free. One fixed figure in writing before any work, and no fix no fee on the bulk of recoveries.
Europe's biggest white-fish port produces paperwork nobody can simply redo. Landings, quota and traceability records off the market and the processing units. Job files and drawings from the fabrication and engineering yards serving the harbour and the energy supply base. Vessel laptops and ruggedised externals that have done a winter at sea and come back with a bearing that sounds wrong. Site data from the gas terminal up at St Fergus and the power station south of town. AB42 also sends plenty of ordinary household work, and a family drive gets the same bench and the same equipment as a corporate one.
Salt air and vibration are what this coast does to hard drives, and the two fail differently. A drive that has lived in a bag on a boat usually goes mechanical: a click, a beep, a rhythmic tick as heads try and fail to read. A drive left in a damp store usually goes at the electronics, corroding contacts until it will not power up. Neither is grounds for plugging it in again. Every retry with failed heads drags them across the surfaces your files are written on. Kill the power, leave it dead, and have it assessed properly.
Post the bare drive tracked and insured from Peterhead and it is here the following working day. Use the firm's own courier if there is an account open — that booking and that charge remain yours. Or bring it in person to Edinburgh Data Recovery, 4 Redheughs Rigg, Westpoint, South Gyle, Edinburgh EH12 9DQ, open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, roughly two and a half hours down the A90. Nothing is picked up from yards, quaysides or houses. There is no van and no doorstep service, and saying so plainly beats leaving anyone hanging about.
The assessment costs nothing and is wrapped up within 2 working days of arrival. Out of it comes one fixed written figure and a straight account of what is likely to be recoverable. Logical faults are handled on no fix, no fee. Should a drive need opening under laminar flow, or its electronics rebuilt after impact, a surge, seawater or heat, half the quote falls due at that point and the balance only on a result. Ransomware, recorder and DVR work and BitLocker volumes are forensic-classed and paid for in advance; the ransom itself is never on the table. No phones, no tablets, and nothing whose storage is soldered to a motherboard. Boddam, Cruden Bay, Longside, Mintlaw, St Fergus and the rest of Buchan use the same terms, as does anywhere else in Scotland. Freephone 0800 689 0668.
Nearly everything on this bench came by tracked, insured post. It is the safest way to shift a failing drive, and a parcel handed in at a North-East post office is usually here the next working day.
Still bolted into a laptop, desktop, MacBook, iMac, server or CCTV / DVR box? Get the hard drive or SSD out first. The bare drive travels on its own. Stripping machines down is not a job this lab takes on. Flash soldered to a motherboard, as on Apple Silicon Macs and a couple of very thin laptops, is our one flat no: if it will not unbolt, it cannot be worked on.
↓ Print the shipping & booking-in form (PDF)
Address it for the attention of Edinburgh Data Recovery. From Aberdeen that is roughly 130 miles and two and a half hours down the A90, or next working day by tracked post if you would rather not make the run. You get a call the moment it is booked onto the bench.
Not sure what belongs in the box? Ring 0800 689 0668 before you tape it shut, or work through the free online diagnostic.
Free diagnosis, the figure written down, no fix no fee on most jobs. Online or on the phone.