DATA RECOVERY PRICING

Once you've decided to contact a professional data recovery service, you are consulting with a specialist, as opposed to a general computer repair technician. Specialists tend to be pricier, but also possess more advance knowledge and expertise of the problems you'd need for them to solve.

If you've already made some calls and looked around, you will find that most Data Recovery services aren't cheap and will require a minimum cost that might be close to what you paid for your computer in the first place! Some companies rates are justifiable given the expenses they must occur for each project as well as what it costs them to stay in business. Others might offer excessive quotes to recover your data that might even require a small loan to pay for. The top end for what you'll see at most data recovery services ranges between $3,000 to $6,000!!

Bonafide Data Rescue recovery pricing for hard disk drives usually starts at $250. In most cases, we'll try to keep the final quote within $1,000. Each project must be assessed on a case-by-case basis, but you'll never see a quote that is quite as excessive as what our competitors are offering.

We recognize that the value of one's data is based on many factors, such as the time it would take to recreate it. However, there are many cases where the data cannot be recreated, such as digital photos, videos or other personal keepsakes of which there were no other copies. These lost files might seem priceless to you, but we all have our limits in terms of what we can afford to pay for recovery.

Our approach at Bonafide Data Rescue is to consider each case for its relative value to our clients, as well as the technical obstacles and expenses we anticipate for your project. While a fixed price can only be determined with a proper evaluation, we would be happy to give you a ballpark quote for your given circumstance. Please call us at 800-507-3757 or send us an e-mail and we'd be happy to offer you a fair and competitive quote for our services.

EVALUATIONS

Free Evaluations!

We offer "no cost" assessments as our general policy. There are a few exceptions to this rule which will be noted below in this section.

During the evaluation process, we will determine (1) the cause or nature of the problem, (2) recoverability of the data, (3) strategy for recovery and (4) costs and resources required for your project. We typically aim to complete the assessment within 24 hours of receiving the project. If additional time is required for the evaluation, we will notify you.

DATA RESCUE CATEGORIES

These are the categories we use to classify incoming projects. Other factors include overall difficulty, our costs and time sensitivity, and the size of the media to be recovered. We will consider each client's particular circumstance, as well as our own expenses in quoting a new project.

Category 1 - Portable Media Devices

Includes USB Flash Drives, Camera Cards, Floppy, ZIP Disks, CD/DVD/BluRay media

These are smaller capacity drives typically used to transfer files between computers, cameras, home entertainment systems and other proprietary devices. Common issues with these media types include recovery of deleted files, formatted media and unreadable sectors.

For devices incorporating a circuit board and memory chip (like a USB flash drive), we often see bent or broken USB connectors, firmware issues and electrical failures due to liquid or physical damage.

Category 2 - Hard Disk Drives - Logical Issues

This category involves recovery of drives that are still physically functional, but require software imaging or reconstruction. Common issues include:

Deleted file recovery
Formatted media
Overwritten or reinstalled media
Minor bad sectors / Sector read errors

Category 3 - Hard Disk Drives - Firmware, Electrical & Moderate Logical Issues

This category includes more advanced cases where a hard drive may still be recognized by a computer, but the data has become completely inaccessible. These cases may require specialized recovery hardware solutions to repair or disk decryption. In the case of an electrically failed drive, parts and specialized repair may be required, but the odds for success are still high.

Firmware corruption
Encrypted data
Moderate to high bad sectors
PCB / electrical failure

Category 4 - Hard Disk Drives - Advanced Physical Failures & Media Damage

This classification is reserved for the most difficult hard disk recovery projects. While a clicking hard drive can often indicate a physical failure, there are also other lesser malfunctions (in categories 3 to 4) that can produce the same symptoms. When a drive has been confirmed with a category 5 issue, data recovery is still possible, but much more complicated for the technician. These projects may also require parts and attempt fees that will be inclusive in the final recovery quote. Examples include:

Physical damage to the media surfaces
Electrical or physical damage to the head assembly
Spindle motor seizures or malfunctions
Advanced logical issues, including recovery of proprietary file systems or advanced encryption.

Category 5 - Solid State Hard Drives

SSD's or solid state hard drives are increasingly being utilized in computers to increase overall system speed, as traditional hard disks are typically the slowest link in the computing chain. While their circuit board based construction makes them immune from physical disk crashes, they are still quite vulnerable to premature failure. Common problems include bad sectors, firmware issues, electrical failures and liquid damage. SSD's can actually be more difficult to recover in some cases due to the complexity of the electrical repairs that are sometimes required and limited options for firmware repair.

Category 6 - RAID Disk Arrays

Multiple disk arrays are more commonly utilized in servers and enterprise environments. However, they can also be found within external hard drives and consumer NAS devices. Failures within multiple disk array are often caused by such failures as:

Controller board malfunctions
Failures of one or more members in the array due to logical, electrical or physical causes
Damage to the logical volume information due to power failures, viruses, bad sectors, or changes to the disk configuration

RAID recoveries can be often more expensive than standard disk recoveries due to the increased complexity of the process. It is necessary for our technicians to identify the cause of the failure and isolate any failed members to determine if physical or electrical repair will be required. In addition, the original RAID configuration must be recreated exactly so that the original data can be extracted and integrity preserved.

Smartphones & Tablets

As of July 2022, we are no longer accepting phones or tablets for data recovery. The unfortunate truth is that these devices have become increasingly difficult (if not impossible) to recover data from. This is due in large part to their software and hardware architectures. The only exceptions we'd consider would be for any tablet or phone with removable storage such as an SD card with user data or a tablet containing a removable SSD. Otherwise, these devices will be now be placed beyond the scope of our current service offerings.

Deleted files become quickly overwritten due to the limited free internal storage space that most phones typically possess. Also, these recovery operations usually require "rooting the phone" for administrative access, which can potentially render the phone unusable (also known as "bricking the phone") or make the phone more vulnerable to hacking.

Encryption schemes by vendors such as Apple and Samsung have made it nearly impossible to recover data from locked phones. OS boot loop issues caused by insufficient free space have also proved to make any recovery attempt fruitless.

Physically damaged phones require 3rd party repairs that are only occasionally successful. Liquid damaged phones and tables are even more daunting to recover. While we had previously charged attempt fees in the past to even accept these devices, success rates have been far too low for us to continue investing into this recovery sector.

Since tablets utilize essentially the same architecture as phones, these have also proven to be too difficult for us to continue pursuing recovery for. Most tables contain SSD's or internal storage that has been hardwired to the motherboards. In all of these cases, we would recommend finding a vendor that specializes in phone recovery or repair.

ADDITIONAL FEES

Attempt Fees

For the majority of cases we see, there are typically no additional fees required for evaluations or recovery attempts. However, there are a few scenarios where I must charge for fees in advance to cover our expenses and keep my quotes competitive. While other companies may offer free evaluations and no attempt fees, their final quote prices are typically two to five times higher than what I would charge on the final invoice.

For hard disk recoveries, additional parts may be required for the completion of your recovery project that we do not have on hand. If this is the case, I will usually ask that my clients cover the cost of obtaining these parts as an investment into their project. I've seen these parts range anywhere from $25 to $400, depending on market availability, but will always do my best to find the most affordable solution for my clients. Any attempt fees paid in advance for parts will be applied towards the final quote amount.

Please note that any parts purchased for the purpose of a recovery attempt are non-recoupable and remain the property of Bonafide Data Rescue. These fees may also include labor, shipping and administrative expenses. All attempt fees must be paid in advance, but will be applied towards the final invoice.

Destination Media

Bonafide offers a number of options for the return of your data. The method of delivery is your decision, but the cost and methods available will depend largely upon the amount of data.

We usually recommended that you provide us with your media of choice in advance or once the recovery has been confirmed successful. This would typically be an external (or internal) hard drive of the same or larger size than the original drive for recovery. To simply this process, you can order your media of choice from an online vendor and have it shipped directly to us when required.

For data sizes less than 64 GB:

Free, instant internet transfer of data via e-mail (if less than 15 MB), Google Drive, Dropbox, FTP, OneDrive or any other cloud storage solution of your choice. Your data can be transferred within encrypted and compressed archives if data security is a concern.
USB Flash Media drives (64 GB / USB 3.0) for an additional fee of $25.
We can copy your data to DVD-R media for no additional cost by request.

For data sizes larger than 64 GB:

We stock 1 TB external hard disk drives for resale at $100. We will let you know if a larger drive is required and calculate pricing for those drives if needed.
Another option is for us to order a more specific, preferred make/model of drive (internal or external), but additional fees will be added to cover our shipping & handling costs.

Shipping

All shipments will be assessed a minimum $15 charge plus any applicable state taxes. In order to keep our recovery pricing lower, we must ask that our customers cover any shipping related expenses. However, you are welcome to select your shipper (UPS, FedEx or USPS) and provide a return shipping label if you wish. We are happy to send your recovered data or original media using your service level or insurance preferences, but you will be responsible for any additional costs.