The quotes are the first shock. The drive was one of the cheapest parts in your computer, and getting files off it can cost more than the computer did. Free software promises everything; the lab won't name a figure until the drive is on their bench.
Both are behaving normally. Pricing looks chaotic because "my files are gone" is really three different problems with three very different price tags. Sort out which one you have and the numbers make sense.
Three problems that look like one
Deleted or lost files on a healthy drive. You emptied the Recycle Bin, formatted the wrong card, or a folder simply vanished. The drive is fine — this is a software problem, the cheapest of the three, and our guide to deleted and lost files resolves a good share of these cases without spending anything.
A failing drive. It still shows up, but it's slow, files open with errors, and the machine hangs. This one is a race — every hour of use loses more. The warning-signs guide covers how to tell.
A dead drive. Clicking, beeping, not spinning, not detected at all — or it was dropped or got wet. No software on earth helps here. This is lab work.
One rule covers all three: stop using the drive now. Windows writes constantly, and every write can overwrite a deleted file or push a dying mechanism over the edge. Shut the machine down and read the rest of this on another device.
What recovery software handles, and its price class
Recovery software earns its keep when the drive is mechanically healthy and the problem is logical: deleted files, a formatted partition, a corrupted file system. It scans the disk for data the file system no longer lists.
The price class is modest: as of September 2026, mainstream tools offer free tiers — typically capped at 500 MB to 2 GB — and full licenses run roughly $25 to $90. Two rules separate success from disaster:
- Never install the software onto the drive you're recovering. Installing can overwrite the very files you want back — run it from another computer or drive.
- Recover to a different drive. Same reason — writing recovered files onto the wounded drive destroys what hasn't been found yet.
On a healthy drive this is often a one-evening job — and a technician on Koadi can drive it over a screen-share if you'd rather have someone who has done it a hundred times.
When it's a lab job — and the honest numbers
A lab is the answer when the drive clicks, beeps or grinds; was dropped or got wet; is no longer detected; or when software scans come back empty. As of September 2026, published lab rates cluster into two bands:
- Logical recovery — the drive is healthy but the case is beyond DIY software — generally runs $300 to $700.
- Mechanical recovery — anything that needs the drive opened in a cleanroom — mostly lands between $800 and $2,000, with severe physical damage and multi-drive RAID work climbing past $2,500.
Two things not to do while you decide. Don't keep power-cycling a clicking drive — clicking usually means failed heads, and every spin-up can scrape the platters that hold your data. And don't open the drive or freeze it; the freezer trick is an internet legend that ends in condensation exactly where it does the most harm.
Why lab prices are what they are
A mechanical recovery is closer to surgery than repair. The drive is opened in a cleanroom, because an ordinary dust particle is bigger than the gap the heads fly over the platters. Replacement heads come from a donor drive of the same model — often the same firmware revision — and labs keep donor inventories on the shelf. Specialist rigs then image the wounded drive sector by sector, around damage an ordinary computer would choke on, while someone experienced babysits for hours. You're paying for parts, equipment and skilled time — the data itself is free.
Evaluation fees, quotes and "no data, no fee"
The industry convention: you ship or drop off the drive, the lab evaluates it, and you get a firm quote before any paid work starts. As of September 2026 most large labs advertise the evaluation free; some smaller shops charge a diagnostic fee. Ask before you ship — including who pays return shipping if you decline.
"No data, no fee" is common and mostly honest: if the lab recovers nothing, you owe nothing. Ask one question anyway — what counts as recovered? A drive's worth of readable system files is technically data. Name the files that matter, in writing, before work starts.
A few independent labs skip quoting entirely and publish flat rates — around $300 to $700 by drive size as of September 2026, usually with the same no-data-no-fee promise. Flat pricing is easy to compare; just confirm it covers your failure type.
SSDs and phones play by different rules
Here's the uncomfortable part. Solid-state drives run a background process called TRIM that genuinely erases deleted data, usually within minutes or hours of the deletion. Once the cells are wiped, no lab at any price gets those files back — so if you've just deleted something important from an SSD, cut power immediately.
Dead SSDs are a different story. When the controller or firmware fails, the data often still sits in the memory chips, and chip-level recovery is sometimes possible. Published SSD lab ranges run from a few hundred dollars to around $1,000 or more as of September 2026, and success is less certain than with hard drives.
Phones are the hardest of all. A modern phone encrypts everything with keys held in its own chips, so recovery usually means repairing the phone enough to boot. Published ranges run roughly $300 to $1,500 or more as of September 2026. For SSDs and phones, the backup is the plan — there may not be a plan B.
Deciding whether the data is worth the money
Be ruthless, because the lab won't be. A drive of installers, old downloads and films you can stream again is not worth an $800 bill. Your business's only accounts, or the only photos of someone you've lost — that's a different calculation, and only you can make it. You're paying for the data, not the hardware; the replacement drive is the cheap part, as our guide to computer repair costs shows. And there's no deadline — a powered-off dry drive keeps in a drawer for years while you decide. The exception is water: corrosion doesn't wait, so a wet drive should reach a lab quickly, undried and untested.
Make this the last drive you pay to resurrect
Every price in this guide buys what a backup gives away. An external drive plus an automatic cloud copy, set up once, turns the next failure into an errand instead of a four-figure decision — the backup guide shows how. For business data, the 3-2-1 rule is the standard worth meeting. A tested restore beats any lab's success rate, at roughly none of the price.
If you'd rather not gamble with the only copy
Recovery is one of the few IT jobs where a botched first attempt closes doors for good. If you'd rather put experienced hands on it, post the problem free on Koadi and describe what the drive was doing when it stopped. Vetted, identity-verified technicians pick it up; you set a fixed price or take bids, and payment sits in escrow until you approve the result. Logical recoveries happen remotely anywhere in the US; when the drive needs hands, local on-site technicians are available. Koadi also sets up the backup afterwards — recover what was lost, then make sure it cannot happen again.