No-recovery, no-fee. Guaranteed.

All data recovery work undertaken by CDR is on a free diagnosis and a “No-recovery, “No-fee” policy. For hard disk drives that have not been previously opened then there are never any upfront non-refundable charges ahead of the recovery work taking place. Below is CDR’s full non-refundable fee policy.

Non-refundable fees.

Under most circumstances, we will never ask for money upfront or a non-refundable fee. We do this to make sure that our customers are confident that we are charging them only when data has been recovered. Moreover, customers know that we have no financial gain whatsoever if we cannot recover data. If we give you a quotation and you do not wish to proceed with recovery, or it is not possible to recover data and you require the device back we will make a £10 + VAT charge to cover postage and packaging for all devices with a mass of 10KG or less.

There is one exception to this policy. If the HDD has been previously opened and has had the platter(s) exposed, either by a customer, a PC Shop or even another data recovery company, it is impossible for us to know how the hard disk drive has been handled. The chances of a non-recovery are higher, and it is more difficult to make a conclusive diagnosis of the failed HDD. If we conduct work on the HDD and require donor parts (a matching HDD) there is a cost associated with this for us. Consequently, as a result of the previous opening and mishandling, we do not think it is fair for us to take on that liability. As such any HDD that has been previously opened will incur a non-refundable fee, payable once the HDD is received. This non-refundable fee is £100 + VAT  for any HDD with a capacity lower than 6TB. For HDDs of a capacity of 6TB+ the fee will be determined by the model number of the HDD. If we are successful in recovering data then this amount will be deducted against our standard recovery charges.

Severe mishandling of HDDs. (Updated January 2022, taking effect 14/01/2022 )

For HDDs that have been subject to severe mishandling then an additional fee shall be incurred. The following alterations to a HDD are considered to be severe mishandling:

  • Platter(s) removed & replaced
  • Unscrewing of the spindle motor
  • Attempts to move, or remove, the head-assembly
  • Native printed circuit board replaced & lost
  • Removal of components/alterations to the native printed circuit board
  • Excessive contamination to the platter, including fingerprints or liquid or physical scratches caused by foreign objects
  • (Deliberate) alteration of the firmware or ROM of the HDD to prevent access to data – note this can usually only be performed by a data recovery company with specialist equipment

Performing data recovery on HDDs that have been subject to severe mishandling is considerably more complex. Typically the total working/diagnostic time is increased by several hours compared with HDDs that have not been previously opened or mishandled. We base the additional fee on the working time required to resolve fault caused by the mishandling. The payment is required in advance of any recovery attempt.

Tier 1 (£50 + VAT): Excessive contamination within the HDD, including cleaning of fingerprints from the platter surface.

Tier 2 (£100 + VAT): Lost/missing, or altered Printed Circuit Board, including Solid State Disks (SSDs). Alteration of the firmware or ROM.

Tier 3 (£150 + VAT): Internal components of the HDD removed, altered or replaced.