The order it goes in
How your case runs. Seven stages, and two of them wait until you say go.
Every 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, and nothing is ever rebuilt, initialised or reformatted on the original drives at any stage. What follows is each stage as it actually runs, what the drives are doing while they wait, and how long each usually takes. One drive is £300 + VAT and a set £500 + VAT upwards after the free look, fixed in writing; 3–4 days at the bench for one drive, 5–10 days at the bench for a set.
Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
0800 6890668
The order it goes in, end to end.
Every band, in prose →The form
You tell us the server, the controller, the model strings by slot, what the controller 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, every drive numbered and its model string, serial and firmware recorded against its slot, and the whole 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. Nothing is powered in a server.
The free look Free
Read-only assessment on the imager the drive's interface needs: SAS, SATA, a terminated SCSI or Fibre Channel controller, a PCIe adaptor for NVMe. The firmware, the sector format, the security state, the defect lists and the controller's metadata are read before a sector is; a drive that clicks goes to the clean bench without being powered again. The fault is named — heads, service area, controller, format, lock — 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 drives come home at our expense with nothing owed.
The work on the bench
Heads swapped in clean air on matched donors, service areas repaired, controllers coaxed, drives unlocked with your key, and every drive imaged once at its native sector size, head by head with the weak areas last. One member goes back on fresh media, sector-identical; a set is reassembled in software from the images, with the order and geometry read from the controller's metadata on the drives or recovered from the parity arithmetic, and the file system repaired on the virtual volume. Never on the originals.
The image, then the files, home
One member: the image on a fresh drive of the same interface and format, checked sector by sector, with a note of what the imager could not read. A set: the file list checked by opening it, listed for you before any bill exists, and the files sent home on fresh media with the original drives, tracked, postage paid. Your case stays open until you have rebuilt from the image or 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, or a drive that needs a donor |
| Your decision | As long as you need | Nothing; the drives wait, unpowered |
| Bench work, one drive | 3–4 days at the bench | A 15K donor to find, or a helium head swap |
| Bench work, a set | 5–10 days at the bench | A second weak drive, a cleared configuration, a rebuild that ran before it arrived |
| Image or files home | Next working day after approval | Very large sets copying to the new media |
What belongs in the box
- The failed drive in its carrier, with the slot written on it; or every member where the set is the job, each in an anti-static bag in its own padding.
- The controller, only if we ask, or if it was replaced and the set is now foreign, or if it holds the SED key.
- The booking sheet, printed and filled in, with the drives listed by slot, or sent on ahead from the quote page, and the controller log if you exported one.
- The key, or a note that it will follow: the PERC passphrase, the HPE encryption key, the KMIP details. Encryption halts the bench at the point you halted.
What stays at home: the server, unless it is a small box whose bridge holds the layout; 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 drives come home at our expense with nothing owed. The free look is free whichever way you decide.
What comes back for one member drive?
The image on a fresh drive of the same interface and format, sector-identical, with a note of what the imager could not read; and the original drive. The set rebuilds from the fresh one.
Can I ask for priority?
Yes. Priority handling puts the drives at the front of the bench and is quoted separately, only when you ask.
How do I know the image is right?
It is checked sector by sector against the original where the original reads, and your case stays open until the set has rebuilt from it or you have opened the files.
What happens to the original drives?
They go back to you with the image or the recovered data, or are securely destroyed at your request. We do not recommend rebuilding onto a recovered drive, and we say so on the sheet.
All of it begins with one form.
Five minutes on the quote page, the posting details by return, and the first look is free.