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EDR / Places we cover / Holsworthy

EX22 · the Square · the Ruby Country · Holsworthy

Data recovery, Holsworthy. The herd's paperwork sits on one farmhouse PC; the lab is in Bristol.

Holsworthy is a small market town located in Devon's western-most corner. According to the 2021 census there are approximately 3,500 people living in the parish. It marks the junction of two major roads, the A388 and the A3072, within Torridge District and therefore under Torridge District Council rather than West Devon. In Holsworthy, Wednesday represents the week: it is livestock market day at New Market Road, where around 2,000 to 2,500 animals are sold during an auction according to their own figures, and they have held sales on this site since 2014. The dairy farms who supply the stock for the market use a computerised system for keeping records relating to herd management, milk recording export data and pedigree certificates, but all of these records are kept on one PC or laptop used from the farmhouse or in the parlour office. What this page relates to is just that single copy. Following behind them are the vets, agricultural merchants, tyre dealers and machinery dealers, each operating out of a single server they have not inspected in years, and finally there are the family archives brought with retirees who live in the newer housing estates. As well as being without a railway service since 1966, Holsworthy also does not possess a counter for dealing with customers. After receiving a price quote, your drive will be sent to our Bristol laboratory via trackable, insured post (or you can drop it off there, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed). We provide a complimentary diagnosis upon receipt, and return your drive to you at our cost.

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

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What goes wrong around Holsworthy.

Not there? Head for the triage →
What's wrongWhy it's common locallyStep one
The only photographs of St Peter's Fair on the memory cardSt Peter's four-day fair in July commences with the Pretty Maid on the first day, and one committee member's card has everythingDo not take anything else onto this card; get a quote and post it today
A vet/merchant's office server which will no longer bootThe small local practices, the local merchants and the admin office at the medical centre each have their own server box that has been installed for many years but never reviewed againWe recover the data; your IT support rebuilds
Portable drive fell off a table when moving into one of the newer estatesWhen people move into Holsworthy for retirement they bring all their family files with them, all on one diskUnplug it; do not retry a damaged hard drive yourself at home
The parlour-office laptop used to record data about the herdAll the herd information (pedigree certificates, herd software, exported milk records and TB test history) is stored in one place, and when you sell your cattle at auction on Wednesday there's just the one versionImage first
A contractor's USB stick which now doesn't show upThe agricultural contractor or haulier runs the administrative side of things using a "stick" (so with regard to invoicing and downloading tachographs etc.), with no second copyNo repair tools and no formatting; once a quote has been produced, it will be posted in a padded envelope in its original state
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.

How a case gets from EX22 to Bristol and back.

Two roads out, and neither has to carry the driveThe motorway from Holsworthy is reachable via the A388 for Bideford, the A39 for Barnstaple and the A361 (North Devon Link Road) to Junction 27 of the M5. Alternatively, take the A3072 to Hatherleigh, then the A386 to Okehampton and continue on the A30 to the M5 at Exeter. There's really no need to drive it. After a quote has been given, the drive is usually packed, posted, tracked and insured to Castlemead on Lower Castle Street in Bristol, and it will come back the same route at our expense. You can also drop it off at Castlemead, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed.
A stopped farm office or practice goes firstTell us when you make your initial contact that the business has stopped (the parlour office has closed, the practice has closed, the merchant's counter has closed), and we mark this as priority before the package leaves Holsworthy; we are going to open it up and diagnose it on the day it arrives, take images of it throughout our working hours, then, after we've made the diagnosis, we'll give you a date that we're good for.
A red light on the NAS? Every disk travelsAfter a quote, the small server or NAS located behind an administrator's desk for a vet, merchant or the admin of the medical centre travels as bare disks (only a NAS whose disks won't come out travels whole). Each of the disks is pulled individually for marking with its respective bay, and the one that has been marked as 'failed' will also be included. Never press rebuild: a rebuild on a bad disk will write over the information that we are trying to recover. For two or more disks, the price begins at £500 + VAT.
Priced in writing, invoiced with VATOne free diagnostic report once received, plus a written price (one figure) prior to doing anything that will cost you money: £250 + VAT for the committee's memory card or the contractor's stick, £300 + VAT for the drive from the parlour laptop, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. We include the VAT on each invoice for the farm or practice accounts, and every working copy we keep of your data is deleted thirty days post delivery of your drive back to you.

Just off Holsworthy.

All the towns we take →
Bideford → Okehampton → Crediton →

Four questions from Holsworthy, answered straight.

Which places around Holsworthy does this page cover?

It covers Holsworthy as a whole (the Square, North Road, New Market Road and the newer estates on the edge of town) and the surrounding area that includes all of the farms and villages of the Ruby Country, which is comprised of the 45 parishes surrounding Holsworthy and Hatherleigh. Bideford and Great Torrington also both fall within the same Torridge District Council, while Okehampton has its own page. Regardless of where you are, it doesn't matter, because after a quote, an EX22 farm lane and the Square deliver the exact same tracked parcel to the exact same bench in Bristol, or you can simply drop it off at that location, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed.

Our herd records are inside the farm software, not ordinary files. Can they come back, or only photographs and documents?

They come back. The entire drive is imaged instead of just pulling off a few files, and that means the program's own database comes with all the other stuff: the herd software data folder, the milk recording exports, the scanned pedigree certificates. The herd software can be reinstalled on the replacement machine and pointed at the folder that was recovered, and the exported files and PDF documents are available for viewing in the same manner as before. Call us and tell us what package the farm uses, and we'll tell you which folders to look through first.

The farm office PC is well over ten years old. Is a machine that age even worth sending?

Yes. It's not age that determines this; it's the drive itself. An old SATA hard drive is about as common a job as you can find at the bench. First get a quote, then send just the drive. Don't send the entire tower. This is only one drive, therefore your band will be £300 + VAT, there is no charge for diagnosing the issue when it arrives, and you'll receive a written quote prior to us doing anything with costs. Do not keep turning it on hoping that it has changed its mind.

Rather than post it, can I bring a drive to someone in Holsworthy?

No, and this is intentional: there is just one intake laboratory and no counters, so we do not handle your hard disk twice. First get a quote either by telephone or using our form; then from Holsworthy the hard disk goes through the post, tracked and insured: padded all around, the shipping form printed and placed into the box, and the tracking number kept. If you prefer to transport it physically yourself, drop-offs are taken at the laboratory door Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed: Bristol Data Recovery, Castlemead, Lower Castle Street (the postcode is BS1 3AG), in Bristol. We will pay for return postage regardless of how the drive arrives.

More like this in the casebook.

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

Wednesday is for the market; any weekday will do for the parcel.

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

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