To think £95-£130

[TangledUpInGin]

For just recovering data and not repairing a laptop is absolutely extortionate....?

[Lockheart]

Often recovering data will also involve physical work - replacing parts and repairing. It's not all about connecting a cable and doing some wizardry.

I guess it depends how much you want your data back. Have you looked for other quotes?

[UmbongoUnchained]

It depends what's wrong with the laptop?

[icanteven]

Yes, YABU. What is the data worth to you?

The person recovering the data has a set of painstakingly acquired skills that you need, and they also have premises, insurance, courier costs and the cost of tools and components.

Do you think that all of that can be paid for if they charged you whatever you think their service should cost (probably about £25)?

[sparechange]

Depends what's wrong with it.
It is presumably a skilled job that will take some time.
Why don't you find someone who will do it for £25 and see what happens...?
Bet you'd be willing to pay £100 afterwards!

[SauvignonPlonker]

It seems a lot, but we paid £100 to recover the data from our old laptop, 2 months ago.

It had all the photos of our DS while he was in NICU, all our holidays over the years, all the photos of our kids. DP's work stuff, my LL/flat info.

So it was worth it for us. We've now bought an external hard drive & back up to that regularly, so hopefully won't have to do it again.

[BoomBoomsCousin]

Recovering data isn't necessarily a straight forward task. It can take time and can require expensive equipment and skilled individuals. Why do you think it should cast less?

[BoomBoomsCousin]

*cost not cast!

[BarbaraofSeville]

Sounds perfectly reasonable to be honest.

Presumably it could involve a few hours work so the most anyone could earn from doing that sort of thing full time would be about £50k a year before costs of running a business, which is probably at the low end of a skilled IT salary. Plenty of people will offer IT services at a much higher rate.

[BikeRunSki]

How much is the data worth to you? If you can't recover it yourself, then it's a sellers market really.

[peggyundercrackers]

it depends what is wrong - sometimes you can just remove the hard drive and plug in a USB cable into the drive via a drive caddy and the data is all there for you - very little work is done with this kind of 'recovery'. you can do this kind of recovery yourself tbh - just buy a caddy and remove the drive from the laptop and plug it in.

if the Hard drive itself has failed e.g. wont switch on and they are recovering it from that then your price is very reasonable.

[00100001]

I do it for less than that - £50

[Junosmum]

Sounds like an awful lot, but then again my husband does it for free for friends/ family/ my work colleagues. It takes a couple of hours, but can be done with netflix on in the background!

[TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams]

It takes hours to do it usually and can require testing lots of different methods depending on the issue [which may not be known to the repair person]

[BarbaraofSeville]

It's also the cost of the knowledge and any software, and the same as any service.

DP used to work as a bike mechanic and people would complain that the charge of a few quid to adjust brakes or fix punctures was too expensive because it only took him a few minutes to do.

For the punctures, he always offered to just sell them the puncture repair kit or new inner tube for whatever the retail price of the item was but they would then moan about not knowing how to do it or not wanting to get their hands dirty.

[HelpfulChap]

£80 at PC World.

[NathalieM]

I think the point is that you can back this stuff up yourself using a hard-drive for way cheaper, and avoid situations like this. So what you're really paying for is your inactivity, kind of like when you book train tickets and they're way cheaper if you plan in advance.

All my work is backed up on a memory-stick and in Dropbox; no need to pay for a service like this.

[KitKat1985]

Well, DH works in IT. Data recovery can sometimes takes ages (2-3 hours minimum) and it's skilled work, so I don't think it's an unreasonable price particularly.

[KitKat1985]

Actually on that point it's amazing how many times since we've been together friends / family have asked DH if he can do them some private IT work. You won't believe how many times he has spent hours fixing computers etc and then people pull out a tenner to pay / thank him with. That's actually why he doesn't bother much anymore. Everyone always wants their IT work done on the cheap at mates rates. I mean you wouldn't offer an electrician a tenner if they had been doing 4 hours work for you would you?

[superoz]

I locked myself out the other day and it took 2 minutes for a locksmith to get back in costing me £100.

Recovering data takes a lot longer than that, so not extortionate especially if the data is important to you.

[LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett]

Why do you think it's extortionate?

Some prospective clients thought my rates were too high 'for just a blog post' but as I explained, I don't leave half my brain at the door and they're getting 20 odd years of skills and experience as a writer. And while I'm working for their low rate, I'm not accepting work at my high rate.

Probably the same for your IT person.

[TangledUpInGin]

I've never had anything like this done before so was totally unaware of what prices were I now know it is neither extortionate or excessive so I stand corrected