Do I Pay Anything If You Can’t Recover My Data?

No recovery fee, no. If $300 Data Recovery recovers nothing, you owe nothing for the recovery itself. There are a small number of exceptions, and this page lists all of them rather than burying them in terms and conditions.

Most companies say “no data, no fee” and leave the exceptions somewhere you’ll find them later. We’d rather you read them now and decide with the full picture.

What does “no data, no fee” cover?

The recovery fee itself: the $300, $500 or $700 tier price based on your device’s capacity. That is only owed if we recover your data and you approve the file listing we send you.

It covers the labor regardless of how much of it there was. If we spend days on a drive, run it through the cleanroom, attempt a head swap and still come up empty, the recovery fee is not charged.

What are the exceptions, in full?

Exception Amount When
Donor parts At our cost Only if your drive needs internal parts such as heads. We tell you the exact cost first and you decide. Payment is due before we order and it isn’t refunded if the recovery fails.
Open cover fee $100 up front Hard drives whose cover was opened before reaching us. Credited toward your total on success, so you never pay more than the tier price. Kept if the recovery fails.
$100 labor fee $100 Charged after we successfully image the device and find it empty, or when we can’t decrypt it because you don’t have the password or recovery key.
Priority Service deposit $100 Non-refundable, only if you chose Priority Service.
Chip removal fee $100 up front Devices needing full disassembly to reach an eMMC or UFS chip, such as a Surface Pro 5, 6 or 7. Credited toward the chip-off price on success, kept as labor if it fails.
Format or deleted-file recovery Full tier price up front Charged before work begins. Refunded minus a $100 labor fee if zero files are recovered.
Specialist shipping $75 If your device went to a specialist, the three shipping legs are owed even if both we and the specialist fail. The 50% specialist deposit is refunded.
Return shipping $25 or $20 Getting your device back to you. $25 with signature confirmation and $100 insurance, $20 without.
iMac drive removal $100 Labor to open an iMac or All-in-One and remove the drive. Owed even if nothing is recovered.

In plain terms: at $300 Data Recovery, if we recover nothing you don’t pay the $300, $500 or $700 recovery fee. You may still owe return shipping, any donor part you approved, and any up-front fee that applied to your specific case.

For a straightforward job, a drive that wasn’t previously opened, no Priority Service and no donor parts, a failed recovery costs you return shipping and nothing else.

Why isn’t the donor part refunded?

Because we buy it specifically for your drive and it’s consumed in the attempt.

Donor compatibility is narrow: head count, head order, preamplifier version, micro jog values and manufacturing date all have to match. A donor sourced for your drive generally can’t be resold or reused for someone else’s, and the head swap itself renders it non-functional as a drive.

You always approve the exact cost before we order. If the price is a problem, ask about a partial recovery, where we disable the failed head in firmware and read what the remaining good heads can reach. That approach costs nothing extra.

If a head swap fails, we return your original drive with its original heads.

What if you recover only part of my data?

You see a file listing before you pay anything, and you decide from there. See what happens if you only recover some of my data for how that works.

One thing worth knowing up front: if we recover 99% or more of the sectors on your device, the recovery is considered successful and the fee is due. You don’t have the option to decline at that point. That’s stated in the mail-in and drop-off forms you sign.

When exactly do I pay?

After we recover your data and after you’ve reviewed the file listing, in most cases. Up-front items are the exceptions in the table above: the open cover fee, the Priority deposit, chip removal, format and deleted-file recoveries, donor parts, and the specialist deposit.

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