Staples on Tuesday said it has signed an agreement that will let customers whose files are locked in a broken electronic device the chance to recover their data thanks to a service by Seagate Recovery.

Seagate Recovery, a company owned by disc-drive maker Seagate Technology, will provide disaster-recovery services through Staples' in-store EasyTech department. Under the deal, Staples customers can seek data recovery from any type of digital media, from a notebook or a desktop to portable media player.

The service will be available in all of Staples' 1,400 office supply stores across the nation. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The best disaster recovery is to have a separate backup system either in the home or through an online service. The Seagate service, however, offers a chance to recover valuable data when there's no other option after coffee is spilled on a notebook, or an Apple iPhone is dropped in water.

With an increasing number of people storing photos, music and video on computers and portable devices, the value of the data often exceeds that of the hardware. "Through our work with Seagate Recovery Services, Staples is able to offer our customers comprehensive data recovery solutions and help them protect their valuable digital assets," Rob DiPietro, director of product services at Staples, said in statement.

Staples will offer through Seagate a free evaluation to determine the cost of recovery. Once approved by the customer, the recovered data will be returned on a USB hard drive under a two-year limited warranty. If no data is recovered, then the customer isn't charged.

Seagate Recovery Services' customers include businesses, as well as consumers. The 20-year-old company provides data recovery services for computer disc drives, RAID arrays, external drives, flash media, tape and optical media, including CDs and DVDs.

Potential data loss can be caused by device failure and fire or water damage, as well as human error. In most cases, data can be recovered through software technologies and/or physical reconstruction of the device.