TQ13 · Dartmoor's south-eastern edge · Ashburton
Data recovery, Ashburton. The A38 took the railway; the parcel takes the A38.
Ashburton is the largest town located within the Dartmoor National Park. It is a stannary and wool town that had a population of approximately 4,200 residents (parish census of 2021), on the south-eastern edge of the park. The Portreeve for this area has stated that the office originated in 820 AD. In terms of commerce, Ashburton's economy relies on selling antiques, food and cooking classes/courses rather than tourism centred around beaches. Therefore, the types of information associated with these areas include an antique dealer's inventory/lot photos and their inventory/stock book stored on one computer/laptop, a video of a cooking class along with an application/bookings system for a cooking school, seasonal footage of a campsite along with site camera footage on one digital recorder, a Rural Payments claim submission for a farm located on the moors using a desktop PC/computer, and a hundred years' worth of digitised historical photographs of Ashburton stored on consumer drives at both the local museum and the history groups. Because the train station was abandoned when it lost its rail bed to the A38 in 1971, nothing from here goes by rail anyway. Obtain a quote first, either by telephone or online using our quote form; then the failed drive goes as a fully tracked and insured package to the Bristol intake lab. Alternatively, you may choose to deliver your drive to the lab personally during regular business hours (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm), with no appointment needed. There are no charges associated with obtaining a diagnosis for your drive on the bench, and we pay for its return postage.
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What fails in Ashburton, and where it sits.
Not there? Head for the triage →| What's wrong | Why it's common locally | Step one |
|---|---|---|
| An antique shop owner's laptop is stuck on the Windows logo | Antique stores in this area take photographs of all lots and store their inventory ledger on the same laptop | Leave it switched off; restarting will damage the hard drive |
| A deli's point-of-sale PC that also maintains the accounts for its suppliers | In this area food establishments have both a cash register and account management system on one ageing Windows machine | We recover the data; your IT support rebuilds |
| A campsite's CCTV recorder that failed to record during the middle of a season | Both the camp sites near to the edge of the moor and the country park use one office for taking season's bookings and viewing footage from site cameras | Disconnect it immediately, because recorders write over their oldest video first |
| An external drive holding scanned images of old town photographs by an Ashburton local history group | The Portreeve's court, the museum and the local history groups have scanned a whole century of Ashburton onto consumer drives | Image first |
| Office PC at a plant-hire yard off the A38 | All tachograph downloads, CAD drawings and invoices are stored on one desktop and nowhere else | Do not reinstall over it from this point forward; get a quote first, then send just its drive |
An Ashburton case, from the first call to Bristol and back.
Near Ashburton.
Every Devon town we cover →Four Ashburton questions, answered plainly.
Do you cover Buckfastleigh and the moor villages as well as Ashburton?
Yes. The areas of Ashburton, Buckfastleigh, Widecombe and the farms on the moor above both towns are also covered. Additionally, the area along the A38 towards Chudleigh will be covered. Bovey Tracey, Newton Abbot and Totnes each have their own pages. There is no counter located in Ashburton. After a quote, all packages are sent via tracked post or may be hand-delivered directly to the Bristol intake lab (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, no appointment needed), so from a TQ13 postcode the bench is as near as it is from Exeter.
My whole antiques business — lot photos, stock book, eBay records — is on one laptop that won't start. Is it recoverable?
Usually, yes. Laptops that won't start have usually lost their Windows operating system or have a failing hard drive. Your photographs and your spreadsheets are still stored on the disk under there. Leave the laptop off. Get a quote from us first. Then send us only the drive (don't send us the laptop; storage soldered to the motherboard isn't taken on, so if you aren't sure what type of drive it uses, call us first). We can then read it on our workbench without one single byte being written to it. The price for a single drive is £300 + VAT, put in writing after the free diagnosis, and you can review your file list before paying.
The farmhouse PC with our Rural Payments claim and movement records has died with a deadline coming. What now?
Ring us first to get your quote, then mention the date. Claim deadlines give the case a priority status; we will view the case upon arrival of the parcel and process it straight through our hours, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm. We will inform you promptly once the diagnostic has identified if there are any possibilities. Turn off the computer immediately, do not allow anyone to run any repair tools on it, and send only the drive by Special Delivery.
Is there somewhere in Ashburton to hand a drive over in person?
No, and on purpose: we use one laboratory with the correct equipment, instead of installing a counter in every town. Obtain a quote first, via phone or using our quote form, prior to sending your media; then you send it via the Royal Mail Special Delivery service from whatever Post Office is most convenient to you, or a trackable courier service which you book to come to your doorstep. You may also drop off your data recovery media personally at Bristol Data Recovery's intake laboratory located at Castlemead on Lower Castle Street, Bristol BS1 3AG. Our laboratory hours for this are Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed. We will send all items back at our cost once processed, whether they came via post, courier or by hand.
More like this in the casebook.
One parcel down the A38, and Ashburton has its answer.
Shut it down. Say what you think happened. Take no decision until the free diagnosis comes back.