EX13 · the Axe valley · Axminster
Data recovery for Axminster. The last Devon town on the A35, one tracked parcel from Bristol.
Axminster is an old market town located at the top of a hill overlooking the River Axe, the last Devon town before Lyme Regis and the Dorset border (on the A35), which had a total parish population of approximately 8,000 people at the 2021 census, was granted its market charter by 1210 and continues to hold a market every Thursday. Axminster carpet making began in 1755 but was halted from 1835 until 1937 and still continues today; therefore the town's design files, colour trials and customer specifications date back many years and are typically taken out of the factory on a designer's USB memory stick. Axe valley dairy/livestock farmers who have their herd records stored on one laptop surround the area of Axminster, along with a mail-order tool retailer whose local contractors will also store copies on their own computers, a cookery school just outside of Axminster with TV footage stored on portable drives, and solicitors/accountants/letting agents whose clients' files are carried around in laptops, some of which were dropped onto the platform at Axminster's 1860 railway station. None of this requires a counter. Obtain a price quote first. Then send your drive via Royal Mail Special Delivery, or use a tracking courier service, to transport it to the laboratory in Bristol, or simply hand-deliver it there (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed), and the analysis will be completed free of charge on the same day that it arrives.
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Five Axminster failures, and what to do first.
Not there? Head for the triage →| What's wrong | Why it's common locally | Step one |
|---|---|---|
| A designer's USB flash drive that has years of Jacquard pattern designs stored on it | There are still people in the town making carpet, and when they leave the factory they take all of their design archives with them in their pockets | Do not plug it in again; get a quote first. Then post it as is |
| A country store or farm equipment engineer's PC that keeps track of inventory and accounts | Each of the trades which support the farms in Axe valley does all its stock and accounts work using one computer | Unplug it from the wall; get a quote first, then send the drive alone |
| A two-bay NAS that contains product photography images, with one bay displaying as "failed" | The town's contractors who are involved in supplying mail-order tools have the only copy on their own equipment | Turn off the system before the second drive fails |
| A portable drive containing cooking school TV footage and class reservations | Archives of recipes, class reservations and production video footage travel on one portable drive | Unplug it and run no recovery software |
| An older back-office PC from one of the town's old shops | The damp back rooms behind the old shop fronts gradually corrode the boards | Do not dry it out on a radiator. Get a quote first, then box up just the drive as is |
From EX13 to the Bristol bench.
Around Axminster.
Where else we cover →Plain answers for the Axe valley.
Is there a counter in Axminster, or anywhere nearer than Bristol?
No, but that's intentional: we prefer working with a single lab (with the correct equipment) versus multiple shopfronts. To get a quote first, call us or use the online quote form; then the drive will be sent via Royal Mail Special Delivery or a courier service with tracking information from Axminster to Bristol Data Recovery's lab: Castlemead, Lower Castle Street, Bristol, BS1 3AG. Alternatively, feel free to drop off your drive at our lab in person, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed. We don't have anyone collect drives from customers and nothing is done over a counter; as soon as we receive and book in your parcel, we'll start the free diagnostics.
Volunteers have been scanning loom photographs and parish records onto one external drive, and it has stopped. What does a single drive cost?
One drive is £300 + VAT (hard disk or SSD) in its case or out of it; a USB stick or memory card is £250 + VAT. Diagnosis on receipt is free and comes back as one fixed fee in writing, so you can make committee decisions before spending any money. Unplug it now, run no recovery software over it, get a quote first, then post it whole with its cable and any power supply in a padded box: we read the scans from a copy, not from the drive.
A solicitor's laptop holds privileged client files. Who handles them, and what happens to your copy afterwards?
Once the drive arrives with us we will assign it a case number and take an image (read-only) of the entire hard drive. Every single action taken in recovering data will be based off this image, not the original. The file list of recovered items that you review prior to making payment comes from the same image as well. Both the original files and any recovered files will be posted back to you via insured post at our expense; after your original files arrive at their destination, our working images will remain stored for a period of thirty days. After this time elapses, all working images will be deleted.
Do you cover Kilmington, Musbury and Chardstock, or only the town?
The entire area of EX13 is covered on the same terms, since there are no counters in Axminster; and each case, after a quote, will be sent via postal services or dropped off at the Bristol intake lab (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, no appointment needed): Axminster itself and all the Axe valley village areas including Kilmington, Musbury, Combpyne and Chardstock, with the village of Colyford just over the line in the postcode area EX24. The Devon neighbours who have separate web pages are Seaton and Honiton, and Lyme Regis, situated across the Dorset border, has one too. Wherever the parcel starts from, there is a free diagnosis, one written price and the return leg paid.
More like this in the casebook.
One Special Delivery from Axminster, and an answer in writing.
Shut it down. Say what you think happened. Take no decision until the free diagnosis comes back.