Data Recovery
From $99 when the drive still reads. Clicking, dead or damaged drives are evaluated and quoted before a penny is spent.
- Price
- From $99 · complex cases quoted
- Turnaround
- Simple recoveries 1–3 days · evaluations first
- If we can't fix it
- The labor fee is on us
Sounds like your machine?
- The computer won't start and everything you own is on it
- The drive clicks, beeps or grinds
- "You need to format the disk before you can use it"
- Files and folders have vanished, or the drive shows as empty
- You deleted something important and emptied the bin
- A phone, camera card or USB stick isn't recognized any more
- The machine was dropped, or got wet, and hasn't been right since
Any of these and it’s worth a look. Diagnosis is included in the flat rate, so finding out costs you nothing extra.
Stop using it. That's the most important thing.
If a drive is failing, every extra minute it spends powered on can turn a recoverable situation into an unrecoverable one. If files have been deleted, every new file written to that disk risks landing on top of what you're trying to get back.
So: turn it off. Don't run recovery software you found online, don't let it keep retrying, don't put it in the freezer — that advice has been circulating since the nineties and it does more harm than good on modern drives. Unplug it, put it in a bag, and bring it over.
If the machine got wet, don't try to charge it or switch it on to "see if it still works". That's the single most expensive thing you can do.
Two very different kinds of recovery
The first kind is logical. The drive itself is fine — the files were deleted, the partition table is scrambled, the format went wrong, or the operating system won't boot but the disk underneath is healthy. This is the common case, it's the one with good odds, and it starts at $99.
The second kind is physical. The drive has failed mechanically: seized bearings, a crashed head, dead electronics. That's the clicking sound people describe. This work needs specialist equipment and, for the worst cases, a clean-room — it is genuinely expensive, sometimes many hundreds of dollars, and no honest shop can quote it sight unseen.
We evaluate first and tell you which one you're in, along with a real number, before any work starts. If it's going to the specialists, we say so plainly rather than opening the drive on a workbench and destroying your odds.
What we can usually get back
When a drive still reads, recovery rates are high — photos, documents, spreadsheets, email archives, tax records, the folder of scans someone spent a weekend making. We image the drive first and work from the copy, so the original never gets stressed further by our attempts.
What comes back is rarely tidy. Recovered data often arrives with mangled filenames and no folder structure, especially after a format. We sort it into something usable before we hand it over — photos in one place, documents in another — rather than giving you a drive with forty thousand files called FILE0001.
We'll also tell you honestly what didn't survive. Partial recovery is normal, and knowing exactly what's missing matters more than a vague reassurance.
Then let's make sure it can't happen twice
Nearly every recovery we do could have been a non-event. One backup — an external drive that lives at home, or a cloud folder that syncs quietly — turns a catastrophe into an inconvenience.
When you collect your files we'll set that up with you if you want it. It takes ten minutes and it's the single most valuable thing we can do for anyone who has just been through this.
What’s included
- Free initial assessment of what kind of failure you're dealing with
- A real quote before any recovery work begins
- Sector-by-sector imaging so the original drive isn't stressed further
- Recovered files sorted into something you can actually navigate
- An honest list of what did and didn't come back
- Your files delivered on a drive you keep, and a backup set up if you'd like one
If we can't fix it, the labor fee is on us. Parts only billed when installed.
Questions we get asked
How much does data recovery cost?
Simple recoveries, where the drive still reads, start at $99. Physically failed drives — the ones that click — need specialist work and are quoted individually after an evaluation. We never start a paid recovery without telling you the number first.
My drive is clicking. Can you fix it?
Clicking almost always means mechanical failure, which needs specialist equipment rather than a workbench. We'll evaluate it, tell you honestly what the odds and the costs look like, and arrange the specialist work if you want to go ahead. Critically: stop powering it on in the meantime.
Can you recover files I deleted by accident?
Often yes, if you act fast and stop using the drive immediately. Deleted files usually still exist until something writes over them. The longer the computer keeps running, the worse the odds get.
Is my data private?
Yes. We don't browse your files beyond what's needed to verify the recovery worked, everything stays on our equipment while we work, and we wipe our working copies once you've confirmed you have everything.
What if you can't recover anything?
Then you don't pay a recovery fee. We'll tell you what happened and why, and if it's worth escalating to a specialist we'll be straight with you about the cost before you decide.
Related repairs
Where we do this
We’re at 14327 MO-5, Sunrise Beach, MO 65079, on Route 5. People drive in from across the Lake of the Ozarks:
Let’s take a look at it.
Two minutes online, or just walk in during shop hours.
or call (573) 555-0142