Looking costs nothing · one fixed figure after
Price your card recovery. Tell us the card and what it says; we will tell you what it takes.
This page is for memory cards and flash drives: SD and microSD from cameras, phones, dashcams, drones, action cameras and consoles; CompactFlash; the CFexpress, XQD, CFast and SD Express cards that are drives inside; USB sticks; and the Memory Stick, xD and SmartMedia cards from older cameras. Two questions give you a likely cause, the price band and the one thing not worth trying tonight. The short form below opens your case; the fuller booking sheet further down goes in the envelope with the card. Either way we reply by email with the posting address, the nearest of ten drop-off points if you have told us where you are, and a sheet to print. After the free look you get one figure in writing. A card a reader still sees is £149 + VAT; a card no reader sees, or one snapped, locked or lying about its size, is £299 + VAT; CFexpress, XQD, CFast and SD Express cards and several cards from one job start at £449 + VAT; and on most jobs no data means no bill.
Put it to an engineer — the first look costs nothing
0800 6890668
Two questions, and a likely cause.
The order of the job →What kind of card?
Whichever comes closest will do.
Two taps and you get a plain answer, plus the one action worth taking before any other. A diagnosis it is not; for that the card has to be on an engineer's imager. Read it as the answer the telephone would give at three in the morning, when the telephone is not there to give it.
Now the detail.
What happens after you send it.
Every band, in prose →An answer inside a working day
A person reads what you write; nothing is sorted by script. Back comes a straight first view of what is likely, one instruction about what not to touch meanwhile, the posting address, the nearest drop-off point to where you are, and a booking sheet to print. We do not publish the laboratory address; it comes by email in reply to the form, and the booking sheet inside the envelope is what matches it to your enquiry when it is opened, whether it arrives by post or through a drop-off point. Your case number is issued that day and emailed to you.
The bench names the fault Free
A case number goes on the envelope and a number on the card, and the card goes on a hardware imager through the reader it needs, never a laptop slot. What it presents is read, its real capacity measured, the file system looked at, and whether it is a card a reader sees with a fault in the data or a card whose controller has stopped is settled. Allow about 48 hours; a monolith takes longer, and you are told which at booking-in.
The figure, and your decision
The figure arrives in writing, the findings alongside it. Accept it and work begins. Decline and the card travels home with the postage at our end. Nothing is owed for the free look in either case, and nothing further down the page quietly undoes that.
The booking sheet: on screen, printed, or both.
Getting it packed.
Run through this before sealing it
- Say what the device said, in its words, and what Disk Management or Disk Utility showed if you looked. A photograph of the screen is worth a paragraph.
- Say what was tried, in order. A format, a chkdsk, a recovery tool: each changes the plan, and on an image most of it is reversible.
- Say which photographs or clips matter most, and a date or a place to look for. Copying begins there.
- For video, send a reference clip from the same camera at the same settings on another card if you have one. A clip cut short by a dead battery is rebuilt from it.
- Put the password on the form for an encrypted drive, and say whether a phone card was portable or internal storage.
Worth saying twice: whatever the checker said, leave the card in its bag and format nothing. A great deal of the work on this bench was made harder by one more format to see whether today might be different.
The questions that come up first.
Is the checker actually a diagnosis?
It is not. What the checker does is infer from the boxes you ticked. A diagnosis means the card on an engineer's imager with its real capacity measured and its file system read — and only that sets a price. Take the checker's word on what to leave alone tonight; take the bench's word on cost.
How much will it be?
A card a reader still sees is £149 + VAT. A card no reader sees, or one snapped, locked or lying about its size, is £299 + VAT. CFexpress, XQD, CFast and SD Express cards and several cards from one job start at £449 + VAT. The pricing page sets it all out in prose, and the free look is what produces your one written figure.
Is no data, no bill genuinely true?
On most jobs, yes: nothing recovered means nothing to pay. Two kinds of work fall outside it — a card another laboratory has already worked on, and a card that has been opened, sanded or glued at home. If yours is one of those you are told at the outset, well before you agree to spend a penny.
Can I just send the card without the form?
Please do not; without the booking sheet inside, the envelope cannot be matched to your enquiry, and the address is only sent in reply to the form. The short form takes two minutes and the address comes straight back. The same holds at a drop-off point: the envelope needs your name on the outside and the sheet inside.
Can I drop the card off instead of posting it?
Yes, at the nearest of ten drop-off points across the UK, during its opening hours, in a sealed envelope with your name on it and the booking sheet inside. Say where you are on the form and the point's address and hours come by email with the posting details; the drop-off page says how it runs. The card still comes home by post.
How soon does an answer come?
Within one working day at the outside, and usually much faster while the desk is staffed. The free look is slower: reckon on about 48 hours once the card is on the imager, longer for a monolith.
A price inside two minutes.
Checker, form, envelope, bench — by post or through a drop-off point — and the decision is yours, made with one figure in front of you and nothing to pay for the looking.