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EDR / Places we cover / Dawlish

EX7 · the Lawn, the Warren and Holcombe · Dawlish

Dawlish data recovery. Care rotas, park CCTV and family photographs, usually posted from EX7 and diagnosed free.

There were 15,257 people living in Dawlish parish at the 2021 census, a sixth more than in 2011, and the local plan of Teignbridge District Council allocates 860 homes for the north-east edge of Dawlish, served by the new link road and bridge crossing the Shutterton Brook. Health and social work is the most significant sector of employment within Dawlish, accounting for 23 per cent of the total employment, and the drives that fail here follow: a care manager's laptop containing the rotas and medication records, a holiday-park recorder located at the Warren holding the season's CCTV, a pocket drive from a new dwelling at Secmaton Farm housing every photograph taken since the first scan, and the ten-year-old external hard disk a retiree's desktop computer was backed up to, which is now clicking. Contractors employed by Network Rail have been working on the Dawlish seafront since 2019 on the 800-metre-long wall of 2020 and 2023, constructed as a result of the storm in February 2014 that caused an eight-week closure of the railway; site laptops used for drone footage get dropped. Nothing is handed over in the town itself. Once a quote is obtained, your item gets sent via tracked delivery from your nearest Post Office branch, along the A379 past Starcross to Exeter and onto the M5 north to the intake laboratory in Bristol, where the diagnosis won't cost you anything. Additionally, you can take items directly to this laboratory, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed.

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

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What breaks in Dawlish, and the first move for each.

Not there? Head for the triage →
What's wrongWhy it's common locallyStep one
A Warren park's CCTV recorder that quit playing back in AugustAll lodges, pools and car parks use one back-office NVR for recording all seasonSwitch it off now; as long as it keeps running, it will overwrite the recording of the time segment you want
A care manager's laptop that won't start up on a MondayThe care industry is the largest sector in this seaside resort. A single laptop is used to take rotas and medication records home from workDo not start it again; do not use repair tools; leave it switched off
A toughened laptop which has been dropped on the sea-wall or link-road worksThe sea-wall contractors and link-road crews are carrying all their drone footage and surveys in the vanA drop means a mechanical failure, so power off; before you send just its drive, get a quote first
Pocket drive from a new house at Secmaton FarmYoung families fill the new estates, and every photo since the first scan is on one driveDon't keep plugging it in; each attempt wears down that failing drive further
A shop's till PC from the Strand that took seawater in January 2026The bottom floors of seafront buildings got wet; salt damage continues to affect a board even after it has driedGet a quote first, then bag just its drive while it is still damp and post it; do not dry it out and do not turn it on
Posting it to us: get a quote first, by phone or with the form, then post it (with tracking and insurance) to our secure intake laboratory in Bristol. We will take care of the return postage. Please include the completed shipping form in the box as well. Alternatively, you can drop it off at our laboratory during the hours of Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed. Packing guidance can be found on our contact page.

From EX7 to the Bristol bench: how a Dawlish case goes.

The A379 to Exeter, the M5 to BristolYour parcel will follow the same route as the rest of Dawlish traffic. It goes on the A379 past Starcross to Exeter and then onto the M5 north to the Castlemead address, where it arrives at the Bristol Data Recovery bench. Once you have received your quote, please send your parcel to us by Special Delivery from the Post Office branch nearest you, or by a tracked, insured courier you arrange for pickup from your own front door. Alternatively you can take the parcel directly to Castlemead yourself, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed. Every handover is scanned and we pay for the cost of returning your parcel.
Bookings down at the Warren? Say so firstThere is a park with no booking system in August. The same as a care agency with no rotas for Monday. On the first phone call, tell us that the business has stopped. As such, the case is marked for priority before it leaves EX7. We open the case the day it arrives and image through our standard working week. This way you get a call from us the moment we have something to say about your case.
Server or NAS: get a quote, then post the disksThe Bristol lab wants bare disks only, not the case (only a complete NAS that has non-removable disks will be sent whole). Get a quote first, then remove the disks, label them with the bay number each one came from, and send all the disks, including the one labelled as the failed one. Do not press rebuild, because your array is put back together from images at our bench, and an attempt made to rebuild your array on site by someone in a Dawlish back office is the surest way to lose what could have been recovered.
One written figure, then a VAT invoiceThere are no costs to diagnose once your package has arrived. Then there is just one number you see in writing, which remains static: £300 + VAT if this is a single drive, £400 + VAT for the park's CCTV unit, and then from £500 + VAT as soon as a second disk is involved. It is only once you accept that figure that you will incur any costs. The invoice includes all of the VAT, to be accounted for in either the park's or the agency's books, and each email will include the case number.

Close to Dawlish.

Our whole patch →
Exmouth → Teignmouth → Bovey Tracey → Dartmouth →

What Dawlish asks before it posts.

Do you cover Dawlish Warren, Holcombe and Ashcombe, or only the town?

All parts of the Dawlish (EX7) post town area, including Dawlish itself, the holiday parks at the Warren and the nature reserve, plus Holcombe in the direction of Teignmouth and Ashcombe further inland. Starcross, located further up the estuary, is EX6 and has the same level of service. Teignmouth, Exmouth and Newton Abbot each have their own dedicated page. What covers you is the postal service, so after a quote, a parcel you send from any of these locations will arrive at the exact same bench in Bristol on the same terms, and you are also able to take your parcels to this location yourself, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed.

Our care agency's laptop holds medication records and care notes. Can you take it, and who sees what is on it?

Yes, we can do that: we will take your laptop's drive and do an imaging process. Once you've got a quote, just send the drive to us, as we don't want the laptop itself. Any storage soldered to the board is not taken on (if you're not sure which kind it has, ring us first). We get quite a few laptop drives from care homes and domiciliary agencies in Dawlish, because health and social work is Dawlish's largest employment sector. Once the drive is imaged as a read-only copy, no changes are made to anything contained within. Then our engineer works on this read-only image of the drive, using the case reference for that particular job. Before any payment is due, you will be able to check a list of what came back. The data goes home with the drive, and we delete all working copies thirty days after the drive has left us. When you call, please advise us if this drive contains care records and identify the most important folders.

The recorder at our holiday park has a season of CCTV on it and will not play back. Do we send the whole box?

No: get a quote first, then send just the disk out of it. A CCTV recorder is £400 + VAT, and the disk is all the bench will require to copy the recordings from (the recordings are stored on the disk and not in the box it sits in). The plug becomes even more important: while the recorder is running it has a habit of continuously recording over its oldest video, therefore turn it off now and make sure you note down which dates and cameras you want included in the export, along with whether it is for your own use, a claim or the police.

Is there a counter in Dawlish where I can hand a drive over?

No, intentionally: we need that single, properly equipped bench to be able to do the work, and we do not intend to have a shop front in each of our towns. Get a quote first, by phone or with the form, before sending us your hard drive. After you get the quote, you will send your hard drive to us from Dawlish (Royal Mail Special Delivery at a Post Office branch) or have a courier you book deliver it to our doorstep (a tracked delivery). The address for the laboratory is: Castlemead, Lower Castle Street, Bristol, BS1 3AG (Bristol Data Recovery). There is also an option for you to hand-deliver your hard drive to us there, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed. Either way, you will receive a case number and a complimentary diagnosis upon receipt of the hard drive, and we pay the postage costs for returning the hard drive back to you.

More like this in the casebook.

Water, flood & damp damage → NAS boxes → Getting photos back → All the areas we cover →

Dawlish to Bristol is usually one Special Delivery. The rest of the way is ours.

Shut it down. Say what you think happened. Take no decision until the free diagnosis comes back.

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