The order it goes in
How your case runs. Seven stages, and two of them wait until you say go.
Every external drive that reaches us goes through the same seven stages, in the same order, and you are asked to decide at two of them: whether to send it, by post or through a drop-off point, and whether to accept the figure. Nothing chargeable happens before the second. What follows is each stage as it actually runs, what the drive is doing while it waits, and how long each usually takes. A single drive is £300 + VAT after the free look, fixed in writing, 3–4 days at the bench.
Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
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The order it goes in, end to end.
Every band, in prose →The form
You tell us the drive, what it sounds like, what the screen says and what matters most. Five minutes on the quote page, or the fuller booking sheet if you would rather do it once. It is read by an engineer, not a script.
Posting details, by email
Back come the posting address, the nearest of ten drop-off points to where you are, packing notes for your kind of drive, and a booking sheet to print. The laboratory address is not published anywhere; it comes by email in reply to the form. Put the booking sheet inside the parcel and write your name on the outside; that is how the parcel is matched to your enquiry when it arrives, and your case number is issued that day. Post it tracked, or hand it in at the drop-off point.
Arrival
Logged, photographed, model and serial recorded, and matched to your enquiry the day the parcel lands, when it is given its case number and you are emailed to say it has arrived. A drive that clicked or beeped at home is not powered at all until it has been looked at.
The free look Free
Read-only diagnosis on our own equipment. The case comes apart and the board is checked; a drive that spins is read on the bench, never in a computer that will retry and time out; a drive that made a noise is opened in clean air and its heads inspected. The fault is named — heads, board, firmware, bridge, or the file system on a healthy drive — and how much can honestly be read back is settled. Allow about 48 hours for one drive.
One figure, in writing
What we found, what we expect to recover, and one price, together. Accept it and work begins. Decline and the drive comes home at our expense with nothing owed.
The work on the bench
Heads replaced with a matched donor set in clean air; boards repaired, or the ROM carried to a donor board; firmware corrected from the terminal with the service area backed up first; WD's key preserved or recovered. Then one full image, head by head, weak areas last, and the file system put back together on the image. Encrypted volumes are unlocked on the image with your key, never on the original.
The file list, then the files, home
What was recovered is checked by opening it, not by counting it, and listed for you before any bill exists. Approve the list and it is invoiced; then the files travel home on a new drive bought in for your job, tracked, with the original, and the postage paid here. Your case stays open until you have opened the files on a machine of your own.
How long each of them takes.
| Stage | Usually | What stretches it |
|---|---|---|
| The form to the posting details | The same working day | A form sent late on a Friday |
| Posting | Next working day, tracked | A parcel sent second class |
| Dropping off | Logged at the point on the spot; to the bench within a working day as a rule | A parcel handed in late on a Friday |
| The free look | About 48 hours from arrival | A set of several drives |
| Your decision | As long as you need | Nothing; the drive waits, unplugged |
| Bench work, one drive | 3–4 days at the bench | Head swaps, shingled drives imaged slowly, a Time Capsule's sparsebundle |
| Bench work, a set | Five to ten days | A rebuild that ran before it arrived |
| Files home | Next working day after approval | Very large volumes copying to the new drive |
What belongs in the box
- The drive, whole, in its case, with its lead and, for a desktop unit, its adaptor. Do not take the drive out of a WD My Passport or My Book. A bare drive goes in an anti-static bag.
- The booking sheet, printed and filled in, or sent on ahead from the quote page so that the case is open before the parcel lands.
- Every loose piece: a socket that came away, the screws, the box a bare drive came out of.
- The key, or a note that it will follow: the WD Security password, the BitLocker recovery key, the FileVault password, the keypad PIN. Encryption halts the bench at the point you halted.
What stays at home: the computer; and mobile phones, which are not handled here at all.
The questions that come up first.
Do I have to accept the figure?
No. Decline it and the drive comes home at our expense with nothing owed. The free look is free whichever way you decide.
Can I have the drive back if nothing is recoverable?
Yes, at our expense, or we destroy it securely if you would rather. Either way, nothing is owed on most jobs.
Can I ask for priority?
Yes. Priority handling puts the drive at the front of the bench and is quoted separately, only when you ask.
How do I know the files are right?
You see the file list before any bill exists, and your case stays open until you have opened the files on your own machine and told us they are what you needed.
What happens to the original drive?
It goes back to you with the recovered data, or is securely destroyed at your request. We do not recommend trusting a recovered drive again, and we say so on the file list.
All of it begins with one form.
Five minutes on the quote page, the posting details by return, and the first look is free.