TQ9, Dartington and the head of the Dart · Totnes
Totnes data recovery. The Dart's boats come up as far as here; a failed drive usually goes on to Bristol by post.
Before being anything else, Totnes is a river town: that's as far upstream as the boats arrive from Dartmouth, and the town reaches uphill from the bridge up Fore Street to the Norman castle perched atop the hill. The South Hams District Council runs its entire district from Follaton House (on the edge of Totnes). At the time of the 2021 census, the population of this Totnes parish was 8,241 residents, though very little large-scale business happens in Totnes. Years of clients' records are stored for counsellors and therapists on one laptop; illustrators and film-makers work out of a studio based on a MacBook and a desktop drive; wholefood stores and market sellers operate using one machine for their tills and supplier ledgers; co-ops store their members' rosters on a PC belonging to a volunteer; all of the local museum's photos, and the heritage railway's, are each digitised just once. And none of these things are repaired in Totnes. As soon as you've got a price quote via telephone or by filling in the form, a failed drive goes tracked and insured (Special Delivery from your nearest Post Office, or a courier service you book from your front door) to BS1 3AG, Castlemead, Lower Castle Street, Bristol. Alternatively you may personally hand-deliver it to Castlemead, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed. When it arrives in Bristol, your drive is diagnosed absolutely free.
Talk it over with an engineer
0800 6890668
Five ways Totnes loses its files.
Not there? Head for the triage →| What's wrong | Why it's common locally | Step one |
|---|---|---|
| The laptop of a counsellor that won't turn on | Here therapists and complementary practitioners store all client notes for many years on a single device | Turn it off, and leave it off; nothing can be accessed except what the data recovery person sees during their work |
| A studio desktop drive that suddenly stopped working mid-commission | Illustrators, film-makers and publishers all use a MacBook for their work and just one external hard drive, which is the archive | Do not plug it into another Mac. Simply unplug it. |
| A frozen till PC at a wholefood store on market day | The organic and vegan stores as well as the various market stalls are each using a single computer to manage till sales, the supplier ledger and the Shopify export | No reinstalling anything. First get a quote, then only the drive travels |
| A co-operative's member list on a volunteer's personal computer | Totnes's charities, co-operatives and community-energy organisations operate out of someone's home computer | Turn the power off and tell us what folders your group will need to access first |
| A boatyard laptop at Baltic Wharf that got knocked | Survey photos and this season's booking information are all stored on portable kit (laptops) at the head of navigation | A "knock" is physical damage. Keep the power off. Get a quote first, before allowing only the drive to travel as it is |
A Totnes case, from parcel to invoice.
Next to Totnes.
Each town we cover →What Totnes asks before posting anything.
Do you cover Dartington, Bridgetown and the villages along the Dart?
Yes. All areas of TQ9 (including Totnes, Dartington and Bridgetown), along with Stoke Gabriel and the riverside villages, Buckfastleigh (up the A38), and out to Ashburton, Dartmouth, Paignton and Newton Abbot, which each have their own page. Each of these uses the same method for reaching our laboratory in Bristol, after a quote: typically via tracked postal delivery, or it can be dropped off at the laboratory, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed; therefore the village you live in will never alter how we deliver the services.
Is there a counter in Totnes where I can hand the drive over?
No, on purpose: we carry out the work in a single well-equipped laboratory in Bristol and not at a desk in each town. First get a price quote either via phone or using our form. Then from Totnes your drive is sent via Royal Mail Special Delivery over the counter of your local Post Office branch, or you can book a tracked courier to your door yourself (we do not collect). If you are in Bristol during the week, you are also welcome to drop it off in person, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed. The address of Bristol Data Recovery's lab is: Castlemead, Lower Castle Street, Bristol, BS1 3AG.
I'm a counsellor and the laptop holds years of client notes. Who sees them?
The engineer on the case will look, and only at what is needed to check the recovery. Once at the lab, the drive is assigned a case number and the data is copied read-only (no one can modify or delete anything) prior to attempting any other action, and the recovery work is performed directly off the copy. A listing of what was recovered is provided to you in order to compare with your original records; all working copies are erased thirty days after the drive has been returned to you, and the drive travels both ways insured and with tracking.
The family photographs are on an old iMac that will not start. Does the disk have to come out?
Yes, in short. You send just the drive, never the entire iMac, and if you would rather not remove it from the iMac yourself, a local PC repair shop should be able to do this for you. A single hard drive is considered a single hard drive: this means it falls into the £300 + VAT pricing bracket. Prior to sending it in, we will provide you with a quote. Storage directly soldered onto the motherboard is not something we accept, therefore, prior to sending us your drive, please contact us first if you are unsure what type of storage was used. More important than anything else is to prevent the computer from continuously rebooting: a ten-year-old spinning drive loses a little more data with each reboot. Having it imaged (read-only) in a single pass is the safe route to your pictures.
More like this in the casebook.
A quote, then one tracked parcel out of Totnes; one written answer back.
Shut it down. Say what you think happened. Take no decision until the free diagnosis comes back.