TQ6 · Kingswear, the ferries and the castle · Dartmouth
Data recovery for Dartmouth. Three ferries and no bridge on the Dart; a failed drive needs neither.
Dartmouth stands on the west bank of the Dart, Kingswear opposite, three ferries between them and no bridge nearer than Totnes; the castle has stood at the estuary mouth for more than 600 years, the naval college of 1905 looks down from the hill, and the parish counted 5,259 people at the 2021 census. South Hams District Council runs the district and the Lower Ferry. The work is on the water or beside it: brokers, surveyors and riggers keep survey photographs on a laptop that lives on a pontoon; crabbers carry marks and catch records on a plotter card nobody has copied; the lettings agencies behind much of the housing keep owner accounts and keysafe schedules on one office server; and the museum, the Flavel and the Regatta committee — first recorded in 1822, the 181st held in August 2026 — scan their archives onto consumer drives. No drive is opened here. Tracked and insured, it goes to Castlemead, Lower Castle Street, Bristol, BS1 3AG, by Special Delivery at a Post Office counter or with a courier booked to your door, and once there the diagnosis is free.
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What gives up in Dartmouth.
Not there? Head for the triage →| What's wrong | Why it's common locally | Step one |
|---|---|---|
| A surveyor's laptop that lived on a pontoon and now will not start | Brokers, surveyors, riggers and sailmakers on both banks keep survey photographs, listings and job histories on one portable machine | Do not try it again; box it as it is, charger left out |
| A lettings agency's office server, silent since a power cut | The holiday-let and second-home agencies that run much of the town's housing keep owner accounts, guest details and keysafe schedules on a single box | We recover; your IT rebuilds |
| A crabber's plotter card that now asks to be formatted | The small commercial boats out of the Dart carry marks and catch records on one card that has never been copied | Say no to the format; take the card out and post it — £250 + VAT |
| An external drive holding the Regatta archive, clicking | The museum, the Flavel and the Regatta committee scan a record that reaches back to 1822 onto consumer drives with no second copy | Unplug it at the wall; no recovery software, no second try |
| A desktop tower up the hill with a lifetime's photographs on it | Much of the year-round population is retired, and the family archive sits on a machine nobody wants to carry anywhere | Leave the drive in it; book a courier to take the whole tower from the door |
The way a Dartmouth case goes.
Around Dartmouth.
Where else we cover →Four things Dartmouth asks us first.
Do you take drives from Kingswear and the river villages, or only from Dartmouth itself?
Both banks and every TQ6 address: the town, Kingswear across the water, Stoke Fleming down the coast, and the river up past Dittisham. Totnes, Brixham, Paignton and Torquay each have a page of their own. Nothing changes between any of them — a parcel from a Kingswear boatyard and one from the streets around the Butterwalk reach the same Bristol bench by tracked post, with the same free diagnosis and the same paid return.
Is there anywhere in Dartmouth to hand a drive over in person?
No, and that is deliberate: there is one lab, in Bristol, and no counters anywhere. Post it by Royal Mail Special Delivery from your nearest Post Office branch, or book a tracked courier to collect from your door — which matters in a town where the desktop is in a house up the hill and nobody wants to carry it anywhere. If you happen to be in Bristol on a weekday, the intake lab will take it from you in person: Bristol Data Recovery, whose door is on Lower Castle Street — Castlemead, Bristol, BS1 3AG.
Our lettings office server holds the owner accounts and every keysafe code we manage. Do we send the whole box?
Send the disks, not the box. With one drive inside, that drive alone is the £300 + VAT band — still in the machine if nobody local will open it. With two or more, power it down, take each disk out, put its bay number on it and post the set, the one marked failed included; that starts at £500 + VAT. As for what is on them: the case gets a number on arrival, each disk is imaged read-only, the work is done from the images, and the copies are deleted thirty days after the disks are back in Dartmouth.
The survey photographs are on a laptop that has spent three seasons on a pontoon. Is it worth posting?
Usually, yes. A machine that has lived on the Dart arrives with salt in the ports and damp under the keyboard, and that is a starting point the bench knows well. Do not try it again and keep it away from the radiator; box it exactly as it is and say where it has lived when you ring. The diagnosis is free, so you know what can be brought back before you spend the £300 + VAT a single drive costs.
More like this in the casebook.
A Dartmouth drive needs a postage label, not a ferry ticket.
Turn it off, say what happened, and hold any decision until the free diagnosis is back.