DT7 · the Cobb, the Lym and Uplyme · Lyme Regis
Data recovery for Lyme Regis. Fossil records, boat drawings and a lifetime's photographs, posted from DT7.
Lyme Regis is a Dorset Council town at the county's western edge: cross the Lym into Uplyme and you are in Devon. Dorset Council's own town profile gives a mid-2024 population of 3,560, with 42 per cent aged 65 or over, and much of what matters here sits on a single machine. Fossil collectors and dealers keep locality records, preparation photographs and stock catalogues on one laptop; the engineers and surveyors who monitor the Cobb carry drone surveys and photogrammetry on portable SSDs; the boatbuilders on Monmouth Beach hold lofting drawings and CNC files; guest houses, holiday lets and gift shops run bookings, menus and decades of property photographs on the PC behind the counter; and the retired keep the family photographs and the family-history research on an old laptop. Salt air, damp and a laptop carried up and down the hill do the rest. There has been no railway since 1965 and there is no counter here, so a Lyme drive goes to our Bristol lab by tracked, insured post; its diagnosis is free when it arrives.
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Five Lyme Regis losses, from fossil laptop to plotter card.
Not there? Head for the triage →| What's wrong | Why it's common locally | Step one |
|---|---|---|
| A fossil dealer's laptop that will not start | Locality records, preparation photographs and the stock catalogue on one machine, none of it re-collectable | Off, and it stays off; no second attempt |
| A guest house's booking PC, dead in the season | Bookings, menus, the accounts and decades of property photographs behind the counter | We recover; your IT rebuilds |
| A chartplotter card from an angling boat, unreadable | Charter and angling skippers keep their marks and logs on a card that lives in salt air | Do not format it when the plotter asks; post it as it is |
| A surveyor's portable SSD that has stopped showing up | Drone surveys and photogrammetry of the Cobb travel in a coat pocket between the shore and the office | Unplug it and stop trying other ports; SSDs get worse with each attempt |
| A retired resident's old laptop with the only copy of the family photographs | More than four in ten people here are over 65, and a lifetime of scans and family-history research sits on one ageing machine | Ring first; we talk you through the packing, and the look is free |
Lyme Regis to Bristol and back: the four parts of a case.
Close to Lyme Regis.
Our whole patch →Asked from Lyme Regis, answered from Bristol.
My locality records, preparation photographs and stock catalogue are on one laptop that will not start. Is that recoverable, and what does it cost?
Usually, yes, and it is the job we would rather see before anyone has had a go at it. A single laptop drive is the £300 + VAT band, bare or still in the machine. We image it read-only before anything else, so the original is never worked on directly, and you name the folders that matter — the site notes, the prep photographs, the catalogue — so the recovered list is checked against them. The diagnosis is free; nothing is charged until you have the figure in writing and have said yes.
I am in Uplyme, on the Devon side of the Lym. Does that change anything?
No. Uplyme is Devon and Lyme is Dorset, but a parcel does not mind which bank it was posted from. Lyme Regis, Uplyme and Charmouth all send the same way, and Axminster, Seaton and Bridport have pages of their own for the next towns along. Wherever it starts, a tracked parcel is usually on the Bristol bench the next working day, and we pay the return leg.
I have a drawer of memory cards from years of holidays and a laptop that no longer switches on. Is that too small a job to send?
No. Memory cards and sticks sit in the £250 + VAT band and a laptop drive at £300 + VAT; the diagnosis is free, so it costs nothing to learn what is still readable. Send the cards that matter most and the laptop together, with a note of what is on them. Ring first if you would like the packing talked through; the return post is ours.
Can I bring it to somebody in Lyme Regis instead of posting it?
No, deliberately so. Lyme Regis has no counter, no van and no collection; one properly equipped lab does the work for every town, and a tracked, insured parcel reaches it from DT7 as quickly as from anywhere. Prefer to hand it over in person? Weekday drop-offs are taken at Bristol Data Recovery's lab — Castlemead, on Lower Castle Street in central Bristol, BS1 3AG. Either way you get a case number, and the diagnosis is free.
More like this in the casebook.
Leave the drive switched off in Lyme Regis; the rest happens in Bristol.
Turn it off, say what happened, and hold any decision until the free diagnosis is back.