What hard disk recovery costs in Kathmandu, how to tell which price band your drive falls into, and why a clicking drive costs more than a formatted one.
Logical failure
From NPR 3,000
Deleted files, an accidental format, a corrupted partition or a damaged file system. The drive itself is electrically and mechanically healthy, so the work is done by imaging and rebuilding rather than opening the drive.
Mechanical or electronic failure
From NPR 8,000
Failed heads, a seized motor, firmware corruption or a burnt controller board. The drive has to be repaired before a single file can be read, usually in the cleanroom and often with donor parts.
The noise a drive makes and the way it fails are good indicators of what the repair will involve. Match your symptom below for a realistic starting price.
| What you are seeing | Usual cause | Starting price |
|---|---|---|
| Files deleted or the drive formatted by mistake | The drive is healthy. The data is still on the platters, but the file system no longer points to it. | From NPR 3,000 |
| Drive is detected but files are missing or unreadable | A corrupted partition table or damaged file system, often after a bad shutdown or a failing cable. | From NPR 3,000 |
| Drive asks to be formatted every time you connect it | The partition structure is damaged. Formatting it would make recovery harder, so do not agree. | From NPR 3,000 |
| Drive clicks, beeps or ticks repeatedly | Failed read/write heads. The drive has to be opened in the cleanroom and the head stack replaced. | From NPR 8,000 |
| Drive spins up but is never detected | Firmware or service-area corruption, or a failed controller board. | From NPR 8,000 |
| Drive was dropped, flooded or burnt | Physical trauma. Needs a cleanroom teardown, cleaning and usually donor parts. | From NPR 8,000 |
This table is a guide, not a quote. Diagnosis is free, and the price you are given afterwards is the final one.
A logical recovery is mostly time on a machine. A mechanical one is a repair job carried out before the data can even be reached, and the cost reflects that.
Pricing depends on the failure type. Logical failures such as deleted files or formatting start from NPR 3,000. Mechanical failures requiring cleanroom work start from NPR 8,000. We provide a free diagnosis and an exact quote before any work begins.
A formatted drive is intact, so the data can be imaged and rebuilt with software. A clicking drive has failed heads, which means opening it in a cleanroom and fitting matched donor parts before anything can be read at all.
No. Diagnosis is free, and our No Data, No Charge policy means you pay nothing for the recovery attempt if we cannot get your files back.
For a drive that is detected and simply missing files, careful use of recovery software is reasonable. If the drive is clicking, grinding or not detected, stop and unplug it. Running a failing drive makes the damage worse and can turn an NPR 8,000 job into an unrecoverable one.
Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba, Samsung, Hitachi, HGST, Maxtor, Fujitsu, LaCie and Transcend, in both internal and external enclosures. The brand does not usually change the price; the failure type does.
Yes. External USB drives, laptop 2.5 inch drives and desktop 3.5 inch drives are all handled at the same starting prices. External drives sometimes fail only at the USB bridge board, which is a cheaper repair than a drive fault.
Bring it to our Tebahal lab in Kathmandu and we will tell you for free, along with a fixed price before any work starts.