datatrack-labs.co.uk Reviews 184

Our experience with DataTrackLabs has been nothing short of exceptional. The journey commenced around August 21st and culminated with the return of our drive on October 7th. Throughout this period, communication with the DataTrackLabs team has been consistently outstanding, primarily via email. We did encounter a minor issue on our end, with some emails inadvertently landing in our spam folder, but aside from that, our interactions with the team were seamless.

It is important to note that some individuals have expressed concerns about the duration of the recovery process. However, it is essential to understand that hard drive and file recovery is a meticulous and time-consuming endeavor. As someone who performs data recovery on drives where files have been unintentionally deleted, I can attest to the painstaking process of scanning the drive, determining recoverable data, and discerning what is corrupted and what is not.

It is crucial to view this process through a pragmatic lens. When your drive is malfunctioning or unresponsive, any time invested in recovery is preferable to not attempting recovery at all. Moreover, one must acknowledge that hard drive recovery is inherently uncertain. Predicting which files will be successfully recovered and which will not is impossible. This painstaking task consumes resources, energy, and, notably, time, even during the preliminary scanning phase. These factors contribute to the overall cost of the recovery process, irrespective of the final outcome.

Before engaging in a data recovery service, it is prudent to evaluate the value of the files at stake and whether the cost justifies the endeavor. In our case, a hard drive containing invaluable family photos dating back to 2007 and various cherished memories of our childhood was in jeopardy. With both copies of the data lost due to the backup drive also being damaged, we entrusted DataTrackLabs with the task of recovery.

DataTrackLabs exceeded our expectations by successfully recovering approximately 75% of files that we classed as valuable (once invaluable files were remove). The remainder resided in bad sectors of the drive, rendering recovery impossible. What impressed us most was the organization of the corrupted files into a separate folder, allowing us to identify the missing data with ease. Armed with this information, we were able to cross-reference our own collection of family photos and replace damaged files, further increasing our overall recovery rate.

In summary, DataTrackLabs distinguished themselves in multiple ways. They offered a transparent pricing structure, providing a preliminary estimate before performing an in-depth analysis of the drive. The final costs and recovery options were communicated clearly and respectfully, with no pressure to commit. Data recovery is inherently uncertain, particularly when dealing with unreadable drive sectors, but it ultimately comes down to the value you place on your data and your willingness to take a chance on recovery. Our experience with DataTrackLabs was undoubtedly a success, and we are immensely grateful for their diligent efforts.

In conclusion, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to DataTrackLabs. It is imperative for individuals to recognize that data recovery is a complex and resource-intensive process, encompassing both time and financial investments. DataTrackLabs has proven to be a reliable partner in the journey to reclaim valuable data. Thank you for providing us with an outstanding service.

Just my experience. Not meant to be a negative review but the experience was neutral at best.

Long story short they were unable to recover the data from my HDD.

Things I liked:
Preservice was excellent, free online evaluation, courier pick up, email and WhatsApp business communication shared and used well, prompt physical evaluation of the HDD with a report, two pricing options offered (more on this later) and finally you felt like they were very knowledgeable and experienced in this field.

Things I didn't like:
The service took 2-3 months before I was informed that they were unable to recover any data (there were other things that they could try but it required more money which made me cancel any ongoing work). There was no indication that the work will take months when I agreed. Unlike like the preservice, communication was slow and all progress updates had to be initiated by me, I decided to enquire at a rate of once per month but feel like this should be the minimum that a company updates their customer, unprompted, on a job that will take months to complete. After terminating the job there was silence, no confirmation or follow up communication on the return of the HDD (no I didn't ask for it and I guess I don't want it back but this is something I would expect)

General insight to users (and maybe the company):
As an obvious Trustpilot user faced with working with a data recovery company for the first time I was weary and sceptical throughout the whole experience, the preservice eased things a little but nerves returned to normal levels during the service. When I was presented with their fair pricing offer: An expensive, no data no fee, option and more reasonable, pay upfront regardless of result, option, I imagined what could be the worst outcome with each option: paying a huge price for the recovery of 1 file (or a partial recovery of just unwanted/useless files) or paying people upfront to sit on their hands for a few months and ultimately tell me that they had failed to recover anything (a reminder that I was imagining the worst possible outcomes - not suggesting that this actually happened but I had to mentally prepare for these possibilities). I ultimately chose the 2nd price option having partially grieved the loss of the data already. In hindsight I regret trying to recover the data professionally as my nephew was able to resource most of important data again himself during the time. The moral of the story is if the data is really important to you then always back it up in multiple places (cloud, SSD, file recovery, etc) or be prepared to grieve the loss of your data as all hard disk drives will fail ultimately and with limited money even the best professional data recovery professionals can fail to recover the data.

They can't accept a genuine review. They still have my hard drive? What do they want with it, I don't know?

The whole approach is one to mislead and confuse a customer and try to charge as much as possible. The website portrays a large firm with lots of staff - the company profile is very odd and reads like it was written more than 10 years ago.

The public domain shows the company had negative nett assets in 2021 and only 2 employees. Nothing stacks up.

Thanks to Datatrack and Michael Owen for full recovery of all my data. Okay so was a bit more than expected but not unreasonable given they had to overcome multiple issues. Comms could have been slightly better but I don't mind as they do their job in the end and I got all data back. I don't think there are many better so I would recommend using. Thanks again Michael, you're a credit to the company.

Scammers, will use every opportunity to rid you of your money and you're lucky if they accidentally do the job in the process.

Summary: 2 months after I engaged with them I ended up with the mutilated hard drive, no useful data, 250 quid short.

Story:
I had a 2.5' hard drive failure, got in touch with DTL.
They tentatively diagnosed the problem as head failure and estimated the recovery to cost 195 pounds, head swap required. No data no payment they said.
The moment they received the drive, they came back suggesting the data IS corrupted as well and the price went up to 450 for "not guaranteed, upfront payment" recovery and 750 for "guaranteed, no data no pay" and after a short negotiation offered "guaranteed" option for the same 450.
Once I accepted, they went silent for a month, not responding to emails, with the status of "waiting for parts" - the head, apparently.
Which makes it obvious that they couldn't have evaluated the state of the data on the disk in the first place: you can't read the disk if the head doesn't work.
So that bump from the initial 195 to 750 was a purely opportunistic scam.
Five weeks later they received the part, attempted and only recovered 10% of the data missing the mark on what I was looking for.
On the basis of "no data no pay" I didn't owe them anything - but I didn't want to give up on that drive just yet and offered the initial 195 quid if they send it back with the head swapped, that was the cost of the swap they originally quoted.
They offered to send me the recovered data for another 55 quid and I paid that as a gesture of goodwill - they tried, I saw the folder structure.

When I received the drive it was not operational. If they swapped the head, it wasn't working - and when I asked the question they claimed they never promised the drive will be operational.
Yet, they accepted my offer to pay for the head swap knowing it's of no value to me, and used the opportunity to bump the price again.
It's classic example of fraudsters' operation, steer clear if you cherish your data, your time or your money.

Quoting the response to my enquiry on the matter:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hi Igor,

There will be no further discussions while your Trust Pilot lies remain online. You have rewarded us with such a negative review because of your complete ignorance. You paid the money to receive the 80GB of data which is not an insignificant amount. You also had the disk back so you can pursue a recovery in the future. You declined further recovery attempts by ourselves. We cannot comprehend why you would think the disk would be working after we told you we could not save all the information.

Labelling us scammers because you totally misunderstood what we were offering is not on.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Completely in line with everything said above.
It's true I misunderstood the service they were offering.
Apparently, they are offering a sinkhole for your money, nothing more.

To Trustpilot: I'd be happy to validate the whole thread with this "company" if required.
Also, I believe it's a valid case to be reported to Trading Standards and I invite every victim of these fraudsters to the same. You can do that through CitizensAdvice.org.uk

Edited:
Commenting on the response from the "trusted data recovery specialists" below:
- I ended up paying £250, not £150
- £195 of that was for the head swap, explicitly specified as the only potentially useful outcome of their "service" for me. The head swap meaning replacing the head with a working one
- The head isn't functional. Ergo, I didn't receive what I paid for.
- another £55 was a goodwill for recovered 10% of the data. Curious fact: none of the recovered data was recent. Almost like it was filtered by recency. Must be just a coincidence
- "lies" and "complete ignorance", yet my review is confirmed to be factually correct


A piece of advice to anyone reading it: don't bite on their "cheaper offer". You'll end up paying more than with a proper reputable company to get something actually done.
Just don't become their next victim.

We are a small family-run business. We unfortunately lost all access to our computer following a power surge that damaged our hard drive. It meant we could not get access to our Accountancy Software, Online Banking and our Emails.

We contact DTL the day it happened, midday Thursday the 10th. They advised me how to get it to them with ease and by 11pm Friday 11th I had a free report on the damages. Following on from this DTL quoted me 3 completely fair prices for Data Recovery. Being slightly more expensive depending on the Speed of which you needed the work done. In our case and many others who may choose to use DTL - price was not a worry as we were more concerned at this stage with getting our computers back up and running.

By Thursday 17th we had received our Hard Drive back by post, Special Delivery. I believe there was only a handful of Files they were unable to recover. Everything else was recovered and back on the Hard Drive as if nothing had happened.

DTLs communication, in particular Michael, was immaculate. Responding to emails, calls and questions informatively and quickly.

We could not recommend highly enough. Without DTL we would have lost some vital documents, previous invoices and overall control of our business.

A fantastic company and service provided which really helped us get out of a big hole we found ourselves in. Thank you DTL!

Well, where to begin.

I sent my 10TB HDD off on the 13th of September as my PC suddenly stopped being able to read it. The report said the drive had failed on :

"Platter inspection"
"Unable to read sectors on disk"
"Corruption to file system"

I was then quoted:

File System Rebuild - £445
Unreadable Sector Remap - £445
TOTAL Cost excluding VAT - £890 (£1068)

For me, that was unaffordable. I requested the return of the disk. I was ignored several times, then when I did get a reply they didn't seem to like that I could not afford to pay that much to recover it.

I paid for the return on the 4th of October and I have only just received it back on the 16th of November. Their returns state up to 21 days. They advised it was left in the mail room but no one thought to check on why that may be.

Here's the best part, when I got it home, not only was it beaten up and hanging out the casing, I plugged it in and it worked perfectly. I've now downloaded all the contents and I am SO glad to be done with this terrible company who were clearly trying to rip me off.

Few small negatives but overall great experience with DTL. I lost 10 years of photo's so contacted DTL who gave an intial estimate of £99 + VAT to recover. However after they evaulated the drive the price went up to £435 + VAT with a 20% discount if accepted within 48hrs. Whilst I appreciate an estimate is just that, I was not prepared for the big jump in price which was then outside of my price range and I sadly had to decline the quote. They then told me they were so confident of data recovery that they would give me a further reduced price which is normally only available as an up front fee on the no data no fee deal which I accepted and glad I did as they look to have recovered everything I lost. The only other negative for me, was once they had done the intial recovery, not much of my lost data was recovered so they had to do a deeper recovery which did work, but it took me quite a few emails to get proof that my files had all been recovered so feel like the communication could have been a bit better there.

So overall great experience as they did get my data back, just for me the big jump in price from the estimate to the quote (which was then reduced after I declined it) and the decrease in communciation as the process went on could have been better. But they did the job they said they would and got my data back so would still give them 5* overall.

5 star service, really quick and great communication the whole time. Recovered all my photos and work from my time at uni which I thought were lost forever. Thanks!

Great service, great communication. Everything recieved back within initial deadline. Thank you. If needed, I will use again.

Great service and managed to help get my data back after a few had already tried and failed! Will definitely use again

This company is utterly a joke, the most ridiculous and unprofessional company I have ever encountered.

Quoted £99 online, and when they examined my portable hard disk they quoted me £799 excluding VAT. I rejected and said it was beyond my budget, they asked “what is your budget then”, what kind of profession company does that? They literally rip you off because they know you don’t have a choice.

I insisted to have my device back and then they quoted me £249. They just seem to give completed random quotes. The person on email also said sarcastically, “ So £249.99 was beyond your budget for the recovery? I’m afraid you might have to accept the data loss as I cannot see it recovered for any less.”, which basically Implies the data can’t be retrieved if I don’t can't accept their offer.

So then I paid the £20 as they collected from me and arranged my own collection, and I RECEIVED SOMEONE ELSE's hard disk. Michael then said they don't even have a registered collection on that day, when he has already agreed with the collection when I emailed him the desalts and said "no problem". Not even a single apology.

I received the wrong disk on Jul 19, and I still have not received my device, which has probably been shipped to somebody else as well. It's a hard disk containing loads of personal data, and this is how this company deals with it. They are literally the cowboys they told you to avoid.

They called me after I left this review and didn't want to apologise for their mistake at all - blamed it all on the reception staff. They asked me to delete this review, post the wrong one back to them first and they will return mine. However at this point, I can no longer trust any words from this company.

Now they raise disputes with trust pilot and hope trust pilot will delete my review. They initiated contact with me ONLY AFTER Ive posted a review.

By the way, the device they sent me belongs to Richard G.

For your own and your data's sake, avoid this company at all cost.

Great work done, got system image retrieved and sent back within specified timeframe

"Great service with what i needed back to me in good time!

I had in excess of around 3000 photos, mainly family and my children as babies. My plug in hard drive stopped working and started clicking.

I used bing to look around and found datatrack labs. They explained what to do and what would happen.

Thanks very much"

Datatrack Labs surpassed all my expectations. They managed to recover the data for a price which suited my limited budget within the agreed timescales. I liked the no hassle free service and their fair approach to business. They were very accommodating and sympathetic to my circumstances. Like many others, I looked at the reviews on Trust Pilot and although some of the negative ones did alarm me at first they were outnumbered by the excellent reviews. Looking closer at the content of the negative reviews it would appear that most of them are not people who have not actually paid for a service. It was reassuring that Datatrack responded to these reviews and put their side of the story across. I decided to call and speak to them direct and this is when I was convinced these were the right guys to help me with the data recovery. All data has been recovered, the service was painless, easy and they took all the stress of the situation away from me, I felt reassured that the disk was in safe hands. I only paid after they recovered all the files and promptly received the data after I provided a new disk for the files to go on to. Unfortunately I have to use them again for another disk but I’m glad to give them the repeat business. I found everyone friendly and sincere which is a must when dealing with something as important as lost data.

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.