The bench is open for new cases · Mon–Fri, 9am–5:30pm Need it fast? Ring 0800 6890668
EDR Exeter Data Recovery 0800 6890668 Start my case
EDR / Places we cover / Ashburton

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 inside the Dartmoor National Park, a stannary and wool town of about 4,200 people (2021 census, parish) on its south-eastern edge, with a Portreeve whose office, by its own account, dates from 820 AD. Its trade is antiques, food and cookery courses rather than the seaside, and its data sits accordingly: a dealer's lot photographs and stock book on one laptop, a cookery school's course video and booking system, a campsite's season and its site cameras on one recorder, a Rural Payments claim on a farmhouse PC up on the moor, and a century of scanned town photographs on consumer drives at the museum and the history groups. The station has stood without trains since the A38 took its trackbed in 1971, so nothing here goes by rail anyway. A failed drive goes off as a tracked, insured parcel to the Bristol intake lab; the diagnosis on the bench costs nothing, and its way home is paid by us.

Tracked in · return post free Diagnosis free when it arrives One written price, fixed

Talk it over with an engineer
0800 6890668

What fails in Ashburton, and where it sits.

Not there? Head for the triage →
What's wrongWhy it's common locallyStep one
An antiques dealer's laptop stuck at the Windows logoThe town's antiques shops photograph every lot and keep the stock book on the same laptopLeave it switched off; each restart costs the drive
A deli's till PC that also carries the supplier ledgersFood shops here run the counter and the accounts on one ageing Windows boxWe recover; your IT rebuilds
A campsite's CCTV recorder that stopped writing mid-seasonThe country park and the campsites on the moor's edge run a season's bookings and the site cameras from one officeUnplug it now; a recorder writes over its oldest footage first
A local-history group's external of scanned town photographsThe Portreeve's court, the museum and the local-history groups scanned a century of Ashburton onto consumer drivesImage before anything
The office PC at a plant-hire yard off the A38Tachograph downloads, CAD drawings and the invoicing, all on one desktop and nowhere elseNo reinstall over it — post the tower as it is, or just its drive
Posting it to us: send it to our secure intake lab — tracked and insured, the return leg paid by us — with the shipping form tucked in the box. Step-by-step packing advice lives on the contact page.

An Ashburton case, from the first call to Bristol and back.

Down the A38, up the M5From Ashburton the drive goes as a parcel: handed over at the nearest Post Office as Special Delivery, or fetched from the door by a tracked courier you have booked. It runs the A38 into Exeter and north up the M5 to Castlemead in Bristol, and the leg back to TQ13 is on our account.
When the till or the bookings stopA deli that cannot trade or a campsite office that cannot see its season goes to the front. Say so when you first ring, and it opens as priority: examined the morning the parcel lands, imaged across our hours, and someone on the phone whenever you want the state of play.
NAS boxes travel as bare disksA home-office Synology or the small server at a yard on the A38 does not travel in its chassis. Each disk comes out and gets its bay number written on it — the ones marked failed included — and rebuild is never pressed; on the bench the array is rebuilt from images of the disks. Once a second disk is involved, from £500 + VAT.
A figure in writing, then a VAT invoiceDiagnosis costs nothing when the parcel arrives. Before anything chargeable there is one figure, fixed and in writing; then a case number to quote, a VAT invoice for the books and a file list to check. Thirty days after the drive goes home, our working copies are wiped.

Near Ashburton.

Every Devon town we cover →
Newton Abbot → Totnes → Bovey Tracey →

Four Ashburton questions, answered plainly.

Do you cover Buckfastleigh and the moor villages as well as Ashburton?

Yes. Ashburton itself, Buckfastleigh, Widecombe and the farms on the moor above both towns, and the A38 side towards Chudleigh; Bovey Tracey, Newton Abbot and Totnes have pages of their own. Everything moves by tracked post, 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. A laptop that will not start has most often lost Windows or a failing drive, and the photographs and spreadsheets are still on the disk underneath. Leave it off, post the laptop or the bare drive, and it is read on the bench without a byte being written to it. A single drive is £300 + VAT, put in writing after the free diagnosis, and you check the file list before you pay.

The farmhouse PC with our Rural Payments claim and movement records has died with a deadline coming. What now?

Ring first and say the date. A claim deadline puts the case in as priority: it is looked at the day the parcel arrives and imaged straight through our hours, Monday to Friday, 9am–5:30pm, with an honest word as soon as the diagnosis shows what is possible. Switch the machine off now, let nobody run a repair tool on it, and send the tower or its bare drive by Special Delivery.

Is there somewhere in Ashburton to hand a drive over in person?

No — and on purpose: one lab with the right kit, not a counter in each town. Royal Mail Special Delivery from whichever Post Office is handiest, or a tracked courier that you book to the door, is how it travels. Anyone who prefers to hand it over can take it on a weekday to Bristol Data Recovery's intake lab at Castlemead on Lower Castle Street, Bristol BS1 3AG. The return leg is paid by us either way.

More like this in the casebook.

Getting photos back → SD & memory cards → External disks → All the areas we cover →

One parcel down the A38, and Ashburton has its answer.

Turn it off, say what happened, and hold any decision until the free diagnosis is back.

0800 6890668

Get a free diagnosis Sending a device in