Why Choose Payam Data Recovery

Payam Data Recovery is an Australian data recovery company. Payam Toloo founded it in Sydney in 1998. We are Australia’s oldest data recovery company, operating since 1998. Data recovery is our only business. This page sets out the reasons people choose us, with the facts behind each one. For the full story, read our About Us page.

Payam Toloo started the business after his own hard drive failed when he was 18. Three companies quoted him between A$8,000 and A$18,000, and he had about A$200.

He bought about 200 dead hard drives, taught himself on them, and then recovered his own drive.

Payam Data Recovery is Australia’s oldest data recovery company, operating since 1998.

The business began in 1998 as a one-person operation run from home. It has done only data recovery ever since.

Our job records run back to 1998, with a job number for every device.

The business grew from a home office to its first office in North Ryde, then to a larger office in North Sydney. It opened in Melbourne in the mid 2000s, and later in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Auckland. A lab opened in the Sydney CBD in 2016, and Rhodes became the main lab after that.

Payam still works on recovery cases every day. Read more about Payam Toloo or his story in his own words.

We have four full service data recovery labs, each with its own engineers, equipment and parts. Rhodes is the main lab.

The Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane labs diagnose and quote, and handle roughly four in five jobs on site. The most complex cases go to Rhodes.

The Adelaide, Perth and Auckland offices are secure drop-off offices with reception staff. You hand in your device and get a receipt. It goes to Rhodes by overnight courier, and your recovered data comes back to you by Australia Post, free of charge.

You cannot collect from the drop-off offices.

Our offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth are in the CBD (city centre), in modern office towers close to trains and buses. Our main lab in Rhodes has easy street parking.

The labs are open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, and Melbourne closes at 5pm on Fridays. The drop-off offices are open 9am to 5pm. Visitors are welcome at the labs.

Our labs are in secure office buildings with CCTV, alarms, access control and after hours security patrols. We do not work from houses, garages or sheds. See all locations and hours.

We recover data from faulty, damaged, liquid damaged and dead devices.

• Hard drives, including drives that click, are not detected, or have damaged heads or firmware.
• SSDs, including NVMe, M.2 and SATA drives.
• RAID, NAS and servers, including RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 and 50, and Synology, QNAP, Dell, HP and Lenovo systems.
• Mobile phones, including iPhones, Samsung and Google phones, and iPads.
• MacBooks, iMacs and Microsoft Surface computers where the storage is soldered to the board.
• USB flash drives and memory cards, including connector repair and chip off recovery.
• Reformatted and corrupted drives, damaged partitions and deleted files.

Other data recovery labs and IT companies send us their hardest cases. Customers in more than 50 countries have sent us devices over the years.

Many customers come to us after another company could not recover their data. If you have been told it cannot be done, send it to us for a second opinion.

No fix, no fee

Phones and tablets are a fixed price. Most recoveries are no fix, no fee. Some complex cases have an attempt fee, then a completion fee only if the recovery is successful. About 90% of our jobs are no fix, no fee. You see your files before you pay.

Where a quote includes an attempt fee, it is part of the total price and is stated in the quote before you approve anything.

What it costs

Most hard drive, SSD, USB and memory card recoveries cost $375 to $1,750 including GST. You approve the quote before any work begins.

Phones and tablets are a fixed $795 on the Economy service.

Prices and special cases are on our data recovery cost page. Your written quote is the price that applies to your job.

Our promises

• We will not quote low to win the job and then give up when it gets hard.
• We will not say we tried something when we did not.
• We will not charge you for work you have not approved in writing.
• We will not send your device to another company or overseas.
• We will not use a free quote as bait.

If we cannot recover your data, we tell you the exact reason.

Urgent jobs

Priority and Emergency services put your device at the front of the queue, with engineers working after hours and on weekends.

An urgent assessment with a written quote can be done within one to two hours for $150 on a hard drive, SSD, MacBook, USB drive or memory card. A RAID or NAS with two or more drives is $500, within two to three hours.

We have over 2,400 customer reviews, rated 4.9 out of 5 on Google and ProductReview (2,483 reviews as at 16 October 2026).

Here are some recent reviews, quoted as written, with first names only:

• “Legit got 180,000+ files of my 4 children’s childhoods saved.” Cat, Google, September 2026.
• “After two other providers were unable to retrieve the information, they had my data back within 2 weeks.” Nathen, Google, October 2026.
• “My data was recovered, and it was both faster and less expensive than the initial estimate.” Campbell, Google, October 2026.
• “Had a job which I thought was lost but they managed to inform me about the process, the chances and what I could expect.” Joseph, Google, September 2026.
• “Khalil kept us regularly updated and informed and we are very grateful.” Ron, Google, September 2026.

Customers mention a real person on the phone, updates along the way, and files checked before they pay.

One review describes one person’s job and does not guarantee the outcome of yours. Read all our reviews.

IT companies and phone repair shops

Over 2,000 IT service providers, managed IT firms, computer repair shops and mobile phone repair companies send us their cases as their preferred supplier for complex data recovery.

IT companies and technicians can join our partnership program for trade pricing and direct access to our engineers.

Other data recovery companies

Other data recovery companies in Australia and overseas send us their hardest cases. We do not name them.

Apple

Apple’s Australian support article, Data recovery and warranty implications, lists Payam Data Recovery as a recommended data recovery company.

Apple notes that the listed companies are not Apple Authorised Service Providers and that Apple does not warrant their services.

Manufacturers and warranty teams

Some manufacturers’ warranty and customer service teams refer their customers to us. A warranty claim usually returns a new blank device, while data recovery returns your data. We get your written permission before we open any device.

We also destroy data. If you do not want your old device back after a recovery, we destroy it securely, free of charge.

Businesses with end of life drives can have hard drives and SSDs erased and recycled in bulk, free of charge. Degaussing and physical shredding are also available.

Destruction happens in a separate area of our Rhodes facility. Nothing is sent to another company, and you get a certificate of destruction. See data destruction.

Overwritten data cannot be recovered.

A locked iPhone cannot be opened without its passcode, and deleted photos and messages on a modern iPhone cannot be recovered by anyone.

Physical damage to the platters of a hard drive, or heat and water damage to memory chips, can destroy data beyond any method.

We recover data. We do not provide general computer repair, and we do not provide formal reports or expert evidence.

We tell you which of these applies before you decide anything.