datatrack-labs.co.uk Reviews 

Well where do I start with this...

I am lost for words on how bad this company are.

I had a conversation with someone, Michael I think the name was. I told him what the issue was and was (heads not moving as drive dropped) I opened he case which I told the person I was speaking with, yeah that's fine. We don't do free assessments on open drives. Fair enough I thought. I sent the disk was advised of the cost, est at around £195 ex VAT, why ex the VAT why not just include it! Yeah we all no why don't we, so they can make more money, I'm NOT STUPID.

Anyway I got an email that states,....

It is evident that your hard drive has been opened previously. We do not offer free evaluations on hard drives which have been previously opened. Please pay £120 by following this link
XXXXXXXXXXX if you would like us to continue with the evaluation.

Yeah I know I did tell you this on the phone!!! I was advised the £120 fee will be taken off the cost of the repair, however no this was not the case.

I got an email...

Dear Michael

Your reference No is : XXXXXXXXX

We are pleased to inform you the evaluation has been completed on your failed storage media.

Please note, due to the serious nature of the failure, and the uncertainty of the recovery result we cannot offer this on our usual no data no fee service. The disk has been clearly mishandled, large amounts of smudges/dirt/debris/dust can be visibly seen on the top platter surface. 50% of the recovery fee will be payable upfront and is non refundable regardless of the recovery outcome.

Therefore an upfront payment of 50% of your chosen service option is required before any work can commence on your case. This is non refundable and is excluded from our no data no fee service. There is no guarantee that any files will be recovered.

Please note, you only make payment of the remaining balance if we recover data from your device *

Recovery Costs and Service Options.

Economy Service (14 – 21 days)

File System Rebuild - £145
Read/Write Head Transplant - £195
Unreadable Sector Remap - £145
Required Parts (New read/write heads) - £100

-15% Discount for online quote

TOTAL Cost excluding VAT - £497.25

-20% Discount if Approved within 48 Hours

Total Cost Excluding VAT - £468

Rapid Service - (7 - 10 days)

File System Rebuild - £145
Read/Write Head Transplant - £195
Unreadable Sector Remap - £145
Required Parts (New read/write heads) - £100
Rapid Service Fee - £500
TOTAL Cost excluding VAT - £1085

Emergency Service ( 24 - 72 hours )

File System Rebuild - £145
Read/Write Head Transplant - £195
Unreadable Sector Remap - £145
Required Parts (New read/write heads) - £100
Emergency Service Fee - £1000

TOTAL Cost excluding VAT - £1585

I was advised they weren't like other companies and cap the costs at £500, yeah right in yr dreams.

Why did it need a File System Rebuild and Unreadable Sector Remap??? How do you know this when you have not changed the heads or attempted to read the disk?. You have visually inspected the disk nothing more. Just the heads needed changing, the disk was spinning, just the heads damaged?

Why don't you be more upfront in you initial quote/conversation It just makes you look bad when your not, AND include prices with AND without VAT!

The tone of the emails from this company were terrible, I am the customer after all. I mean I would have paid 600/700 to get this fixed but not when you are not upfront and treat me like I am stupid and like something you have stood on.

Email I got back from one of my replies, I said I had basically been mis-lead on the costs,,,

From me to them...

Well I certainly feel that I have been misled, I advised that the disk had been inspected which is why I knew the heads were not working. I was told the it would be £120 to look at this but then the cost would be deducted from the repair, so yes I was misled I spoke to more than one person one of which said that you don’t charge more than £500 which is a complete lie also.

And the reply...

You spoke with myself, I said the assessment is deducted providing the disk shows no evidence it has been mistreated or compromised. I also said the price is capped at £500 ex VAT. Your quote is £468 plus VAT so it’s not even relevant.

Er no I think it is relevant when the costs in total would have been approx £700!!!

So I though I cannot deal with them any longer, they are happy when you are paying money that's for sure. So I asked for my disk back which has taken 2 weeks.

The response when I asked when would be posted...

Probably early next week. Please provide the return address.

If you want to see your files again then you need to adjust your cost expectations regardless of where the disk is sent, I mean really?

Data Tracks professionalism leaves a lot to be desired

Just look at the childish responses of previous reviews, say no more

Not professional at all.

I found the whole process very efficient and professional. They recovered an entire hard drive of videos and pictures that I had been told would not be recoverable. It was a lifesaver for our school. It was not cheap but worth every penny.

I have had my external hard drive for 15years plus and it stopped working. Sent my item to Datatrack. Got picked up by parcel force, few days later i tracked the item and it had been delivered. A week goes by no response. So called up Datatrack gave my details and said there have recieved the item and in few days will let you know. Few days go by no response rang up again and got told there not recieved the item and said Datatrack will investigate it. Got a response back a week later from parcel force. As below.

"Good Morning

Thank you for your reply.

I can assure you that this matter has been fully investigated and the driver was interviewed. He advised that he makes regular deliveries to your company and therefore was unable to provide any further information in regards to this."

Then got told by Datatrack to send a invoice of hard drive 15 year old hard drive expect me to still have a receipt.

Don't use this company 15 years of family pictures and videos all gone with no other backup available.

There are numerous data recovery companies out there and after assessing them I chose DTL Data Recovery, Cardiff. They appeared the most professional. They arranged for my faulty drive to be collected the next day free of charge. They quickly emailed me an Engineer’s report and a very competitive quote. They keep you informed at all stages including telling me that they had received my drive at their premises & that the recovered data and replacement drive had been dispatched to me.
Regarding the negative reviews I can only assume that they did not read the readily available Terms & Conditions.
Great service, I can only recommend DTL most highly.

Awful experience with this company. They are not clear and transparent. They advertise an offer that is not real. Also when I asked to have driver back as I wasn't happy to pay for just the evaluation £120, they asked me to pay for the delivery. After several emails, they replied saying that I should pay for the evaluation as the driver was previously opened and checked. Of course, they didn't mention this before! I had to chase them several times to have the device back and after a month and paying £20 for the delivery they finally sent the driver. When I opened the parcel, the driver didn't have its original case! You could have told me that you would have sent the driver without its original case! The service that you offer it's horrible. Worst company ever in UK!!!

Datatrack is one of the very few businesses to be found nowadays that actually 'does what it says on the tin'. Michael is efficient, a good communicator and produced the result I needed.

I lost a document that I had just emptied my head into - and kept no back-up.... I spent the next 48 hrs trawling through various online downloads proffered as recovery tools, which just corrupted the document making recovery more difficult.

The document was inadvertently deleted from PC and USB, and so I took both to local traders around Birmingham (obviously a large city). I quickly realised that whilst most say they can recover data - most can't.

Very happy and relieved customer. Great service from Michael, and I will recommend Datatrack to others without hesitation.

So here is my story as to why 3 stars .
I sent these guys my hard drive in February they looked at it gave me a price I agreed and of the journey went...
1 month went by I emailed for an update got told as it is an old hard drive it will take a bit longer ok fair enough another month another email same stock answer ok ok another month I sent another 2 emails as the 1st no reply then I get another email back saying we have been very busy but will work on the drive this week ... we get to June so I send another email saying look if you guys can not fix it just sent it back no biggie 1 month later another email send finally they say that they can not fix it again fair enough and they will send it back to me again fair enough one week later get my hard drive back well half of the hard drive back minus the casing which after a few emails they point out it is in there T&Cs again fair enough so why 3 stars well after 6 months yes 6 months of me having to chase chase and chase I have all the emails saved by the way why did it have to take so long .This is not a dig by any means just saying it how it was for me I am sure they have a lot of very happy customers and work hard for there customers so before you dismiss this company read more reviews as all is not bad just saying this how it went for me .

Avoid at all costs - WANT TO GIVE ONE STAR BUT GOOGLE BLOCKS IT UNFAIRLY!!!

Just look at thier very low reviews and they only have 4!

Sent me back my broken hardrive (price was toke clean or so didn’t go through with it) without the casing! How crazy is that. It’s already in a abs state as it is so to take it out of its casing and send it back with all the internals exposed and prone to damage was very distressing, surprising and bad.

Where is my plastic case? Why didn’t you send it back to me?

No other company does this as i sent it off to two before them but thier prices were very high just liek this place.

They also tried to charge £20 postage tk send back two very small external hardrives but I got him down to £10 only to clearly see a £4 postage cost sticker on the label! Send me back my £6 aswell!

Also, it took over a month after a lot of emails back and forth to get my hardrives back still broken and possibly now even more broken then when I sent them in due to how they handled it.

Bad communication also.

Truly s h o c king.

My old Toshiba laptop died and I sent the hard drive to DTL. The final charge was £479.60 for data recovery, but most of my pictures and files that I wanted were intact.

So - well done DTL !

Fast and efficient repair of a 2TB drive. Great service and communication from Michael at Data track

I contacted DTL Data Recovery after my hard drived failed. They managed to recover all my data and on top of that they were super helpful. They have a great customer service too. This might sound silly but I hope I don't have to contact them again, but if I do need some data recovery I will give these guys a call.

Thanks

Datatrack kept the cost of my data recovery very low. I beleive there was more work involved than anticipated however they kept to the agreed price and worked with me. All the files i needed were available.

Excellent service, the team went out of their way to be helpful. To my enormous relief, all my data was recovered and returned to me quickly and efficiently. Highly recommend

I sent my hard drive to DTL for a 'free evaluation' after being quoted ~£190 for the repair. I arranged a collection using their service, which then happened on the complete wrong date (useless service). After they received my hard drive they then told me that the repair would cost £700- I declined. After unanswered emails and calls (as many other reviewers experience), I wrote a negative review; this causing them to get in touch with me immediately (convenient).

I was quoted three different return prices- £40, £30, and £10 (apparently a goodwill gesture after my review) before deciding that they would charge me £40, royal mail postage being £3.50. The tone used in their emails verges on threatening and if they replied to communications in the first place they wouldn't have these issues. In their correspondences they are highly unprofessional and after being told that in this industry I should be wary of cheap quotes- I wish I had listened.

After this exchange of emails and the price had jumped back up to £40, they told me I had 28 days before my hard drive would be considered for disposal- I made payment within this time and am yet to receive any reply to my confirmation (as with other communications).

I have now paid the return fee and will be interested to see if they actually send the device back or even reply to my emails/calls. Like other reviews, I would recommend that you avoid this company and search elsewhere for a reliable, professional service & correspondence. There are also many companies who truly offer a free evaluation (including shipping) and I'm sure will be much more professional and reliable in answering calls and emails. When I have previously written a poor review, this was the only way to prompt a response out of this company, if that fails to work this time I will begin the process of reporting the incident through my bank as fraud.

I'm not upset about the contents of the drive, just the horrible attitude displayed by this company, I have never encountered such a lack of customer service with a professional company.

According to the reviews on this site, it's 50/50 whether you will get a response and a useful service or a headache and no replies- scroll down and see for yourselves, this is clearly a running theme.

- In their reply they state that they replied to me, this is an aboslute lie and when they did choose to finally reply they actually acknowledge this themselves. The reply states that returns take 21 days, it has been 33. They have tried to discredit my review but if you spend 30 seconds scrolling you will see this is the consistent service provided. They clearly spent a while writing this reply but failed to mention where my hard drive is and when it will be returned... Also the reason the last review was deleted is because they flagged it to say I had never used the company- another lie but I didn't add further information, I decided to wait the "21 days" to see if they would be true to their word before writing an accurate experience of their services.

Sent two of my HDD's for assessment and data track said they would recover the data from which ever drive showed the most promise.They gave a very detailed assessment of the damage to both HDD's which included failed read/write heads on both discs. They ordered up parts and were able to fully recover all of my data. Data was returned to me on a new drive which i sent to them. Service cost a bit more than I would have liked but in the end they gave me a full appraisal and a fixed price and to be honest was worth the money to get it back. I would recommend this company to anyone who asked.

I sent my SD card to Datatrack Labs for recovery in Sept 2020. I was prepared to pay the £400 quoted for recovery of my data as it was precious to me and I felt confident after reading the reviews on here. I should have seen a turn around in 14 - 21 days but after 3 months of Datatrack Labs having my device I had heard nothing. I sent multiple emails asking for an update which were responded to once stating that the recovery was trickier than anticipated and to bear with them on the matter. Again after having heard nothing after 5 months I emailed again, got no response and then left a voicemail on their business line. The same day I then had an email stating the recovery had been unsuccessful. I requested at that point for my device to be returned to me because I was unhappy with the service I had received and wanted to get a second opinion, but after requesting this via several emails and calling I still dont have my device back after 7 months. My final email gave Datatrack Labs 7 working days to send back my device or I would be seeking legal advice over them not returning my personal data (corrupt or not) and they have failed to respond or deliver the item back to me.
I will now be pursuing the matter formally and urge any potential customers to avoid this company completely.
1. Terrible Service
2. Terrible Communication
3. Terrible All Round
From the recent reviews on here it looks like I am not the only one.

Reported to my bank for fraud and action fraud crooks take your money and promise to give you the data you require and do not supply it and do not contact once they have your funds they also do not return your item you sent.

I would urge everyone who has been duped by these terrible people to do the same. Eventually police will catch up with them.

Reply: Not sure whom this Alisha is whom you speak of but rest assured this review will remain here as it has been verified by trust pilot. Thanks for confirming I am not the only one to bear witness to your scam of a service. Who in their right mind pays for a service and then says they don’t want the service they paid for??? Again I urge anyone who is conned by this company to report to your bank and action fraud my review is a true review and not sure as to why this scam of a company would suggest otherwise.

My usb drive gave up whilst browsing photos for my wife's funeral and was utterly devastated. Decades of photos lost. I found these guys and decided to use them after seeing the companies that had used them and simply couldn't afford to lose the precious memories. Best decision ever! Communication was always extremely prompt over email and after the drive was collected, a report was quickly returned with several options. These guys managed to recover thousands of irreplaceable photos and returned the items to me in time to be able to be included within the funeral plans. Absolute above and beyond level of service to me and couldn't recommend them more. Thank you!

I am very grateful to the data recovery team for the work they did for me. My life like that of many others has been taken over by the computer and although I did not have any world changing stuff on my computer, there was a lot of me on there. Without it I had the choice, spend money or start again. I am so gld I decided to spend the money.

Can't fault them. I decided I had to leave a review after reading some of the negative reviews that I read AFTER I sent my hard drive to them, they had me a little worried.

My external hard drive died, what made it worse that I was in the process of consolidating and tidying my data so that I could back it up! It was primarily my photograph drive, so had lots of sentimental photos, baby photos etc. I had a go trying to retrieve the data via software myself, but no joy.

I contacted DTL, they emailed and called me, explained the process. They did send me a quote but I didn't put much faith in that quote as they hadn't seen the drive yet.

I had it picked up on the day I specified. I heard back from the company quite quickly, informing what was wrong and given a quote for the work. It was a lot higher than the original speculative quote but like I said, I wasn't expecting that quote to be accurate.

They did the work, returned the data on a new drive to me faster than expected and I've gotten almost all of my photos back. Honestly couldn't be happier but mostly relieved!

My only critique is to not bother sending the speculative quote as some people might not realise that might not be accurate depending on what the problem is.

But I've got my data back, precious memories that are priceless really so I didn't mind paying the money to get my data back.