Pricing
Hourly Rate
Hourly rates apply with no job going over 2 hours without prior customer approval.
Labor type Price
In-Store Laptops $79.99/hr
In-Store Desktops $79.99/hr
All Mac Labor $100/hr
Onsite Service for all PCs $79.99/hr
Virus Removal
Is a virus slowing you down? Our technicians are experts at removing viruses, spyware, adware
and malware. Just bring in your computer and let us take a look at it.
$129.99
Data Backup Service
A copy of all your important data, music, pictures, etc. copied to a DVD (up to 4 Gigs)
$49.99
Additional 4 gigabytes of data to DVD: $9.95 each
How we compare
We pride ourselves for having superior quality services at unbeatable prices, see our chart below
and see the difference!
Service Big Box Company Computer Essentials
Diagnostics $60 Additional $40 Applied to total
Virus Removal $199.99 $129.99
Software Install $39.99 per title By the hour (typically $19.99 per title)*
Hardware
Install
$49.99 per component $40 per component *
Data Backup $149.99 for 10
gigabytes
$49.99 for 4 Gigabytes ($9.99 for each
additional 4)
* Hardware and Software installs are done by the hour, we combine these together for the
best value!
Data Recovery
Our rates are pre-determined, and agreed upon, before we start working on your data
recovery. There will be no surprises when your recovery is finished and it’s time to pay the bill.
• If we can’t recover any of your data, there is no charge!
• No diagnostic or attempt fees (when data is unrecoverable).
• $100 labor charge if you don’t want the data we could recover (if we recover less than
99% of your data).
• Our max rate for any single-drive data recovery is $500 (excluding donor parts, if
applicable).
Transfer Drive Rates
Once your data is recovered, we’ll move the files to a “good” hard drive.
We call this hard drive the “transfer drive.”
Here’s what you need to know if you want to buy a drive from us:
All our transfer drives are brand new, name brand (usually Seagate, but could be Hitachi,
Toshiba, Samsung, or Western Digital), and backed with at least a 1-year manufacturer warranty.
PORTABLE USB 3 HARD DRIVES (these drives are powered from your computer using a
USB cable):
• 1TB: $75
• 2TB: $105
DESKTOP USB 3 HARD DRIVES (these drives are powered using a power adapter/wall
outlet):
• 3TB: $125
• 4TB: $150
• 6TB: $175
Larger drives available upon request.
Transfer drive prices do not include sales tax.
Here’s what you need to know if you want to provide your own transfer drive:
1) The drive must be empty. Your transfer drive will be formatted (all your data will be
permanently deleted) before we start moving the recovered data.
2) If your transfer drive is too small or defective (i.e. contains bad sectors, un-mounts itself while
moving data, etc), you must purchase a drive from us. We highly recommend providing a
drive at least 2-3x larger than your “bad” drive.
3) The drive must an external hard drive (with USB, Firewire, or Thunderbolt) or a bare SATA
drive.
4) Transfer drive cannot be a NAS (with an ethernet connection) or a USB flash drive (unless the
bad drive is also a flash drive, or other small devices, like an SD card).
5) The drive must arrive in the same box as the bad drive (you cannot send in a transfer drive
after we receive your bad drive). If you do not include a transfer drive with your bad drive,
you must buy one from us.
Over 2TB Capacity Fee
If your hard drive is larger than 2TB, there is an extra $100 fee if we can recover your data. We
charge this fee due to the extra time required to clone large drives. Even if just a small amount of
data is being used, we still clone the entire drive, as this is the safest approach in most cases.
Other data recovery companies charge $1 per GB, which means a 3TB drive would cost $3000.
A successfully recovered 3TB drive with us is just $400.
Encrypted Hard Drives Fee
If you have an encrypted hard drive there is an extra $100 fee if we can recover your data.
This is because any encrypted hard drive is much more difficult and time-consuming to diagnose
and recover data from. Some examples of encryption include:
• Western Digital external hard drives (i.e. “My Passport”) with
“Smartware” (these drives are encrypted at the sector and/or firmware level, even if
you never set a password)
• HP SmartSave external hard drives
• Apple’s FileVault
• Maxtor/Seagate “Black Armor” external hard drives
• TrueCrypt
• PGP / PGP Desktop
• BitLocker
• Full Disk Encryption hard drives (“FDE”)
• McAfee Endpoint Encryption
Other data recovery companies charge $500-$2000 extra for encrypted hard drives.
USB-PCB Fee
If you have a portable external hard drive with a USB port built-in to the PCB, there is an extra
$100 fee if we can recover your data. This is due to the complexity of recovering data from a
“USB PCB” hard drive, as it does not have the standard “SATA” or “IDE” interface on the PCB.
You can use the pictures below to determine if your hard drive has a USB PCB (you need to
remove the hard drive from the enclosure to see the PCB). Send us a picture of your hard
drive if you need help identifying your PCB.
“SATA” PCB
“IDE” PCB
“USB PCB”
