In most cases, assessment is carried out free of charge. If you choose not to proceed with the recovery after receiving your quote, your device will be returned at no cost.

Exceptions apply in the following situations:

• Devices sent from outside mainland UK may incur a return shipping fee
• Computers, DVRs, NAS, RAID systems and servers may incur a return shipping fee if the recovery is declined
• Opened or tampered drives may incur a return shipping fee if the recovery is unsuccessful or declined
• HIGH, URGENT, and EMERGENCY priority service levels carry a non-refundable evaluation fee — see our Service-Level Agreement for details

If the metal lid of your hard drive has been opened, or any components on the PCB have been tampered with — including reflowing, resoldering, or replacement with a non-original board — a non-refundable attempt fee applies before any work begins.

This fee covers the additional cleanroom inspection and handling required and is charged in addition to the recovery cost. It must be paid before the drive is sent to us.

If you’re unsure whether this applies to your drive, let us know when you get in touch and we’ll confirm before you send anything.

Recovering deleted, formatted, or overwritten files is handled differently to our standard recovery service. Due to the nature of this work — where outcomes cannot be known until the recovery is complete — an upfront fee applies to all cases of this type.

Once you’ve submitted an enquiry, we’ll be in touch with more information about how we handle this scenario before anything moves forward.

Destination Media is the storage device your recovered data is returned on.

If the recovered data is 50GB or less, we’ll provide a secure download link free of charge. For larger recoveries, we can supply a brand-new external hard drive at cost price.

You’re also welcome to provide your own Destination Media once instructed, provided it is cleanly formatted, an external or bare hard drive, and USB 3.0 or SATA 3.0 compatible or newer. NAS or RAID enclosure-based drives are not accepted as Destination Media.

Some physical recovery cases require compatible replacement parts to complete the recovery. Where this applies, donor drives are sourced and charged at cost price only — we don’t mark them up.

We’ll always confirm whether donor parts are required as part of your quote, before any chargeable work begins.

If you offer data recovery to your clients but need a reliable lab partner for complex cases, cleanroom work, or capacity overflow — we can help.

Dragon Data Recovery has operated as a fully equipped, single-site laboratory on the Wirral for nearly 10 years. All work is carried out in-house, nothing is outsourced, and your clients’ devices never leave our lab.

We work with computer repair shops and managed service providers on a referral and white-label basis. If you’re interested in discussing a partnership arrangement, call us on 0151 342 8188  or click the link here.