WD6 · Borehamwood, Elstree and Well End
Data recovery for Borehamwood. A card offloaded once, unverified: usually the riskiest media in the workflow.
Three working studio sites, three separate owners, all inside one Hertfordshire town, which is unusual anywhere in Europe. Elstree Studios on Shenley Road has belonged to Hertsmere Borough Council since it bought the site in February 1996 for £2m and, under a partnership announced in June 2025, is operated by The MBS Group: nine sound stages, over 60,000 sq ft of stage space, heights from 25 to 50 feet, and Strictly Come Dancing recorded there. The BBC Elstree Centre between Eldon Avenue and Clarendon Road is AXA-owned, with EastEnders set to remain for twenty-five years under the 2024 deal and its exterior set rebuilt in mostly real brick for HD — the new set first seen on screen in March 2022, the 1984 original dismantled from late that year. Sky Studios Elstree on Rowley Lane, developed and financed by Legal & General and operated by Sky, has twelve sound stages on 27.5 acres, from 10,000 to 40,000 sq ft, the last of them opened in March 2023. Studio 2000 on Elstree Way is now Lumiere, relaunched in early 2025 as offices and creative space with one stage kept, and Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden is a short run west on a Watford postcode. What all of that puts on a disk is specific: camera original offloaded on set to two or three checksummed copies, production sound files and isolated channels, Avid and Premiere projects, Resolve databases and Pro Tools sessions, cleaned plates and LIDAR scans and EXR sequences, CDLs and LUTs and graded masters, DCP and IMF deliverables, the M&E stems a title cannot be dubbed without, and the production office's call sheets, continuity notes, cue sheets and unit stills. Nothing is collected in WD6. The media is posted, read without charge, and given one figure on paper before any chargeable step.
Put it to an engineer — the first look costs nothing
0203 0868633
Five things WD6 puts on the bench.
Different fault? Try the finder →| What is going on | What arrives from here | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| A card offloaded once, never checked | A day of camera original, with the location handed back | Stop writing to it and let it travel exactly as it is |
| An edit workstation drive that will not mount | Avid bins, a Resolve database, a Pro Tools session | Power it down and send the drive alone |
| A shuttle drive home from a VFX vendor | Cleaned plates, LIDAR scans and EXR sequences on it | Pad it into a rigid box and copy nothing off it first |
| Production sound media that no longer reads | Isolated channels and the stems a foreign version needs | Leave the reader alone and post the media itself |
| A finishing suite's RAID set, now one disk down | Graded masters and the deliverables behind a date | No rebuild — mark the bays, send the disks bare |
Before the drive leaves WD6.
Four questions from WD6.
No counter in Borehamwood — does that hold a job up?
It does not. Nothing is handed over anywhere, in WD6 or in London, because one building holds every imaging rig, every donor disk and every bench. Media makes the trip; you stay in the suite. A parcel handed to any WD6 counter tracked and insured is normally in front of an engineer next working morning, and we pay for its way back.
A card was offloaded once and never verified. Now what?
Stop writing to it, and do not let anyone reformat it or run a repair tool over it. That card is now the only copy of the day, and every further write costs part of what is still readable. It travels in its own case, and it is read at this end before anything else is attempted. Cards and memory sticks sit in the £250 + VAT band.
Delivery is Friday. Can a drive be pushed up the queue?
Say so when you book it and two things change. Your media is put on an imager in front of everything else waiting, and one engineer stays with it from first look to last instead of picking it up between other jobs. A completion date is given only when the diagnosis can back it up, and not before. Weekdays, 9am to 5:30pm.
An editor's project drive will not mount. Are bins and timelines recoverable?
Usually, and they are the part worth chasing first. An Avid bin, a Premiere project, a Resolve database or a Pro Tools session is a very small file carrying months of decisions, and media without the project behind it is only a pile of clips. Tell us which projects matter and they are lifted before the bulk of the volume. One drive on its own is £300 + VAT; where the job holds several disks it opens at £500 + VAT, with the figure agreed on paper first.
Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.
Next door to Borehamwood, on the same terms
Send it from WD6; the first look costs you nothing.
Keep it powered off, leave it where it is, and ring to describe the last thing it managed successfully. Reading it is free of charge. One figure is then put in front of you, and no chargeable step happens before you accept it.