The short answer: Data recovery costs depend on the type of failure, not the amount of data—and the symptoms can already offer some clues. A silent drive that has simply disappeared from the system often has a logical or electronic fault, while clicking or failure to spin points to a mechanical problem. Our typical price for logical recovery from a single drive is CZK 2,900–9,900, an electronic fault costs CZK 5,900–9,900, and a mechanical fault requiring head replacement in a cleanroom costs CZK 9,900–18,900. Platter damage, SSD failures or recovery from multiple drives in a NAS can cost more. The key factors are the condition of the medium and the work required to obtain a readable copy—the exact price can only be determined after diagnosis. See our data recovery price list for details. The costliest mistake, however, is not the price of recovery but a rushed attempt that overwrites the only copy of your data.
Current price list: Valid prices are always available on the data recovery price list page. The service page explains how our data recovery process works, from handing over the drive to receiving a quote. This article explains what affects the price.
Data recovery prices can seem opaque because comparisons often involve fundamentally different cases. There is no single answer to „How much will it cost?"—the same symptom may have five different causes, each requiring a different procedure, different equipment and a different number of working hours. This text is not a binding quote but a decision-making guide: it explains how the price is calculated, what drives it up more than disk capacity and how to recognise a fair quote before handing over your device.
The price depends on the type of failure, not disk capacity
The statement „the drive is not detected" tells you nothing about the likely price. The same symptom may be caused by a damaged USB cable, faulty drive electronics, degraded read heads or a seized motor—anything from a five-minute cable replacement to opening the drive in a clean environment. Until a technician diagnoses the medium, any figure is merely an estimate within a range.
The price therefore does not depend on how many gigabytes you want back, but on how those gigabytes can be accessed safely in the first place. Recovering two files may cost as much as recovering the entire drive: most of the work usually lies in reading the damaged medium safely and creating a sector-by-sector copy. Locating a particular document in the completed copy is then only a small part of the job.
When not to attempt recovery yourself and what we do
DIY attempts increase the price most when:
- the drive clicks, scratches or repeatedly spins up—every additional power cycle can turn a head-replacement job into a case of platter damage,
- the drive is not detected or reports an implausible capacity—repair tools and initialisation can overwrite structures needed for recovery,
- the drive has been dropped or exposed to a power surge—the first attempts to power it on often cause the most damage.
In these cases, switch the drive off and send it in for data recovery. The process has three steps:
- Intake—bring the medium to our laboratory in Brno-Židenice or send it to us; we record the symptoms and any previous recovery attempts.
- Diagnosis—we determine the type of failure and what can be recovered. An initial diagnosis of a standard HDD or SSD may be free; non-standard cases (a drive opened by another repair shop, overwriting or formatting, or complex analysis) cost 1 210 Kč including VAT (1 000 Kč excluding VAT). For RAID and NAS systems, a simple initial assessment may be free, while more complex analysis is quoted separately. We always notify you in advance if the diagnosis will incur a fee.
- A quote, then the work—you receive a specific price before recovery begins, and we do nothing further to the medium without your consent.
Is it urgent? Call our 24/7 line at +420 775 556 063.
Typical data recovery prices (2026)
The following figures are based on our live data recovery price list and are indicative. The exact price is determined after diagnosis, based on the type of failure and the condition of the medium.
| Type of failure or service | Typical case | Indicative price |
|---|---|---|
| Logical HDD failure | Deleted files, quick formatting, or a damaged partition or file system | CZK 2,900–9,900 |
| HDD electronics failure | Drive does not spin up, is not detected or stopped working after a power surge | CZK 5,900–9,900 |
| Mechanical HDD failure | Head replacement in a cleanroom | CZK 9,900–18,900 |
| Platter damage (critical) | Critical physical damage to the platter surface | from CZK 24,900 |
| RAID up to 8 TB | Data recovery from a disk array or NAS with a total capacity of up to 8 TB | from CZK 14,900 |
| RAID over 8 TB | Data recovery from a disk array or NAS with a total capacity of more than 8 TB | from CZK 24,900 |
| Logical SSD recovery | Deleted partitions or a damaged file system | CZK 3,900–7,900 |
| SSD firmware | SSD firmware or controller failure | CZK 9,900–24,900 |
| USB flash drive or SD card | Logical or hardware failure of portable media | CZK 2,900–9,900 |
| Express service within 48 hours | Priority processing; the deadline cannot be guaranteed for mechanical failures | surcharge of 50–100% |
| Unsuccessful recovery | The data cannot be recovered | CZK 0; only shipping is charged |
The lower end of the range usually applies to media that can be read reliably without being physically opened. The upper end applies to cases requiring spare parts, complex reconstruction or repeated read retries, where the drive must be read in small sections using controlled retries.
What you are actually paying for in data recovery
The result is not a „repaired drive". A damaged medium is generally not returned to service—the objective is to read the accessible data and save it to another, healthy drive. The price therefore does not cover hardware repair, but the working hours and equipment required to obtain a readable copy.
The total may include:
- initial diagnosis and identification of the failure,
- stabilisation of the medium before reading,
- creation of a sector-by-sector copy on working storage,
- replacement of electronic or mechanical components,
- reconstruction of partitions, the file system or a RAID array,
- verification of the files found and preparation of a list of recoverable data,
- transfer of the result to a new medium,
- secure retention and subsequent deletion of the working copy.
Before handing over your drive, ask which of these items are included in the quote. A low initial figure may cover diagnosis only; spare parts, a donor drive, output media or work outside normal business hours are often charged separately.
What increases the price more than the amount of data
Type of damage
A deleted partition on an otherwise readable HDD is a very different case from a drive that clicks after being dropped. With a logical failure, work is performed on an image of the medium and the drive is not physically opened. A mechanical failure may require opening the sealed chamber, replacing the head assembly and reading the platters in small sections. This is where the difference in procedure—and therefore in price—is greatest; it is explained in more detail in HDD data recovery by failure type.
Previous repair attempts
CHKDSK, disk initialisation in Windows, rebuilding a RAID array or repeatedly powering on a clicking HDD can make the original problem worse. With bad sectors, every additional read puts more strain on both the heads and platter surfaces; a repair tool operating on a damaged file system may overwrite the very structures needed to locate the data. A drive that has passed through several repair shops may therefore cost more not only because it needs further diagnosis—it may be in a significantly worse physical condition than when it first failed.
Availability of spare parts
For an HDD, buying any drive with the same capacity is not enough. A donor must be selected according to the specific family, electronics revision, firmware and mechanical parameters—and for some models, finding a compatible part increases both the turnaround time and the price.
Encryption
BitLocker, SSD hardware encryption or an encrypted NAS volume changes the entire process. Without the recovery key, password or correct configuration, even successfully read data may be unusable—properly implemented encryption cannot be bypassed by a laboratory simply because it has physical possession of the drive. We cover what to check about BitLocker beforehand so that successfully reading the data does not prove futile.
Required turnaround time
Express recovery requires dedicated equipment and work outside the normal queue. The surcharge makes sense when downtime affecting accounting, production or a project team costs more than prioritising the job. But money cannot overcome the physical limitations of unstable media—there is no safe way to accelerate the reading of a damaged drive beyond a certain point.
HDD, SSD and NAS: why prices differ
With a conventional HDD, failures are classified as logical, electronic or mechanical. Clicking usually means that the read heads cannot initialise correctly or are repeatedly searching for service information—and each additional power cycle damages the platter surfaces. That is why a clicking drive almost always falls into a higher price range, with every additional spin-up increasing the risk.
An SSD has no platters or moving heads, but that does not make recovery simpler. The controller distributes data across NAND chips, applies error correction and translates logical addresses into physical blocks; if it fails, this logic must be reconstructed. After deletion, the TRIM command also marks blocks for erasure, which may cause the data to disappear permanently—after losing data from an SSD, switch it off and do not reconnect it.
NAS systems from Synology and QNAP add another layer of complexity. Recovering individual files from drives such as WD Red, Seagate IronWolf or Toshiba N300 is not enough—the correct drive order, array type (RAID or SHR), block size, parity, volume status and file system must all be determined. Synology systems often combine DSM, SHR and btrfs, while QNAP commonly uses storage pools and thin volumes. Be careful: rebuilding a degraded array is not diagnosis—it writes to every connected drive and can make matters worse if the drive order is wrong or another drive has a hidden fault.
Do you pay even if the data cannot be recovered?
There is no single rule across the market. You may encounter free initial diagnosis for standard drives (HDD and SSD), paid diagnosis, or a model in which the customer pays for the work only if a pre-agreed result is achieved. The difference between „free initial HDD diagnosis„ and „pay only for successful recovery" can have a significant impact on the final invoice.
You should therefore obtain written confirmation of:
- the price of diagnosis and whether it is refundable or non-refundable,
- what constitutes successful recovery,
- whether you can approve a list of priority folders in advance,
- what additional costs may arise,
- whether the price limit can be exceeded without your consent,
- what happens if key data is missing or damaged.
„We recovered 95% of the files" may not count as success for a business if the missing five per cent includes its accounting database or the latest version of a project. Define the desired outcome by priority data, not by the number of files.
How to recognise a reputable quote
A reputable provider does not promise success before diagnosis. They can explain the failure, the proposed procedure and what could cause further damage to the medium—and they do not pressure you into making a decision before they have even seen the drive.
When choosing a provider, check:
- whether the company performs the recovery itself or sends the drive to a third party,
- who will have access to the data and whether an NDA can be signed,
- whether you will receive a written quote,
- whether you can specify priority files,
- how the list of recoverable data will be provided,
- how long the working copy will be retained and how it will be securely deleted,
- whether the company will issue a proper tax document.
The word „laboratory" alone guarantees nothing. Ask about the specific procedure, equipment and responsibility for the medium. Prices for the same job can vary considerably between providers—it makes sense to compare them before handing over the drive, not by subjecting the same damaged medium to five consecutive diagnoses, with every attempt increasing the risk.
Before handing over the drive: steps that keep costs down
Switch the drive off as soon as you discover the problem. Do not try to copy „just one last folder„, run CHKDSK or initialise the drive, and do not automatically click Recover or Rebuild on a NAS. These „rescue" attempts are among the most common reasons a job moves into a more expensive category.
Prepare information that will speed up the diagnosis:
- the exact drive or NAS model,
- the number and order of drives in the array,
- a description of the last known working state and what happened immediately before the failure,
- which tools have already been run,
- whether the storage is encrypted,
- which folders and databases have priority,
- how much one day without the data costs the business.
DIY tools such as Recuva or TestDisk are suitable only for accidentally deleted files on healthy, reliably readable media—and recovered files must always be saved to another drive, never back to the original. If the medium clicks, disconnects, reports bad sectors or contains the only copy of company data, further experimentation is no longer the cheap option; it can become the most expensive part of the entire incident.
Frequently asked questions
How much does data recovery from an external drive cost?
An external HDD or SSD is assessed according to the actual type of failure inside its enclosure. A logical HDD failure typically costs CZK 2,900–9,900, an electronics failure CZK 5,900–9,900, and a mechanical failure requiring head replacement in a cleanroom CZK 9,900–18,900. For SSDs, logical recovery typically costs CZK 3,900–7,900, while resolving a firmware failure costs CZK 9,900–24,900.
Is the initial HDD and SSD diagnosis free?
The initial diagnosis of an HDD or SSD is free, and it may also be free for certain other data storage media. For mobile phones and tablets, as well as non-standard or time-consuming cases, diagnosis costs 1 210 Kč including VAT (1 000 Kč excluding VAT); we notify you in advance if a diagnosis will incur a fee. If a successful data recovery is performed after a paid diagnosis, the diagnosis is generally included in the final recovery price and is not charged a second time. If a standard recovery attempt is unsuccessful, you do not pay for the recovery; only shipping is charged. Another exception is a targeted search for a specifically named file, which costs CZK 1,000. If the file is successfully recovered, this amount is deducted from the total price of the job.
Why does recovering a few files cost as much as recovering the entire drive?
The main cost lies in reading the medium safely and creating a sector-by-sector copy. A technician often has to process a large part of the drive before determining whether the requested files are complete and undamaged—and this applies whether you want two documents back or everything.
Can DIY data recovery reduce the price?
Only with a healthy medium and a simple deletion. Recuva or TestDisk may help if nothing is written to the original drive and the recovered data is saved elsewhere. With clicking, bad sectors, an SSD after deletion or a degraded RAID array, DIY attempts increase both the risk and the final price.
How long does data recovery take?
Logical cases typically take several working days. Unstable HDDs, sourcing spare parts or reconstructing a RAID array take longer. The timeframe must be based on the diagnosis—express service shortens the wait in the queue, not the time required to read a damaged medium safely.
Need a price for a specific drive, SSD or RAID array? Review our data recovery price list and send us a description of the failure.
Where to find us
ITHOPE is a company based in Brno, Czechia: we do data recovery from disks, RAID and NAS, PC and laptop service and IT for business, all in our own lab at Viniční 3587/216, 615 00 Brno.
Phone +420 775 556 063 (24/7 line). You can bring the device in person, or send it by courier (Zásilkovna, PPL).