NW10 and HA9 · Brent
Data recovery, Brent. A food unit's traceability file, due on demand, on one small server in a locked office.
This borough is unlike its neighbours because of Park Royal. According to the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) Development Corporation, Park Royal is the largest area of strategic industrial land in London. It houses approximately 1,700 businesses and around 43,100 jobs in food manufacturing, logistics, film and prop hire, and vehicle repair, although the borough boundary cuts right across it, so an NW10 address there can be in either Brent or Ealing. What all these businesses keep has to be producible on demand. For example, a food factory holds Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) plans, traceability documents, batch and lot numbering, chilled-chain temperature logs, supplier certificates and allergen matrices, usually on one small server or network attached storage (NAS) located in a locked office. Similarly, a prop or lighting hire business maintains an asset register with images of everything they hire out, along with the hire contract details and PAT test records; without that information, it would not be possible to prove ownership or demonstrate the safety of hiring out equipment. Likewise, a freight forwarding business keeps copies of all consignment notes and customs documentation relating to deliveries long since completed. pladis still manufactures products at its facility on Waxlow Road in Harlesden and announced a £68m investment in UK manufacturing operations in July 2025. In the areas surrounding Wembley Stadium, the commercial activity is primarily related to events and hospitality, so the records are staffing schedules and pass lists for events held only once. Independent retailers occupy virtually every available retail space along Harlesden High Street, Kilburn High Road and Ealing Road in Alperton, and most of them operate using a single back-office computer. Nothing is collected from Brent, and no service counters exist in Brent or London. First obtain a quotation by telephone or via our online form, then post the media to the address shown on the shipping form or bring it to our Guildford intake lab, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (appointment not required). Looking at the media will incur no cost whatsoever, and a fixed fee in writing will be provided before any chargeable work begins. Costs for recovery services are: £250 + VAT for a card or memory stick, £300 + VAT for a single drive, £400 + VAT for a recorder (CCTV, DVR or NVR) and £500 + VAT and upwards where a job takes in a second disk.
Put it to an engineer — the first look costs nothing
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Five faults that keep arriving from NW10 and HA9.
Different fault? Try the finder →| What is going on | What arrives from here | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| A NAS used by a technical office that will not mount. | Batch records, chilled chain temperature logs and allergen matrices. | First power down completely; then request a quote; thereafter if possible label each disk with the bay number and send them to us bare; otherwise send the entire NAS unit. |
| The portable laptop carried everywhere by a technical manager. | Supplier certificates and product specifications stored nowhere else. | Request a quote first; then send the disk; the machine remains with your IT. |
| An external drive belonging to a hire company, in and out of vans. | Asset register listing photographs of every piece of equipment hired out. | Most frequently encountered type of recovery on this bench; stop using it. |
| Mirrored pair in Park Royal unit reduced to a single disk. | No person has opened the box since the week it was installed. | All members are imaged; rebuild occurs after image creation. |
| Knocked off a desk, clicking ever since. | Equipment that moves between a unit and a van receives far more physical impact than you may realise. | Do not turn it on; every time you boot it, more is taken off your disk. |
Getting it here, and what it costs.
The four questions asked most.
Which parts of Brent does this cover?
In terms of area coverage, all of it is covered on an equal basis: NW2, NW6, NW9 and NW10, HA0 and HA9 and the HA3 fringe at Kenton (Wembley, Willesden, Kilburn, Harlesden, Neasden, Kingsbury and Alperton). As nothing is ever collected, a unit in Park Royal and a shop on Ealing Road do exactly the same thing: obtain a quote first (either by phone or using the quotation request form), send us the media tracked or drop it off at our Guildford intake lab (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, no appointment needed), and you will incur no cost for the examination or for its journey back.
The NAS in the technical office has stopped mid-rebuild.
Shut down immediately. A rebuild process will only finish once it has read through every sector of every remaining spinning disk, and on equipment that has logged temperatures and batch records over many years it is this constant load which finds the next weak disk. Broken off halfway, you would be worse off than the original fault had left you. Therefore turn off the power and get a quote first (either by phone or using the web based quotation request form). Then, if you can, remove the disks from the NAS and label them with the bay number they came from, and send the drives bare or drop them off at our Guildford intake lab, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no appointment needed); otherwise send us the entire NAS. In cases involving two or more disks, the minimum price for these types of projects would be £500 + VAT.
An auditor may want to see how this was handled. What comes back?
A "read-only" image of the media you provide will be created, and every action thereafter will occur against this image as opposed to the actual media you provided, which returns in the condition it reached us in. A single cost is agreed upon on paper prior to any of these actions taking place. At the end of the day you will receive your files on new media as well as an itemised report indicating which files were read whole and which were not. This type of documentation can withstand scrutiny as to its validity should someone ask about it down the road.
What is the right way to box a drive up?
The fact that a drive may be damaged in transit due to being movable necessitates addressing this issue first. If possible, use an anti-static bag when sending the drive. Use firm padding on each of the six sides of the packaging. Or simply use the original packaging that the drive was sent in. Get a quote first (via telephone or using the contact form) prior to posting it via a tracked and insured method, along with a printed shipping form enclosed within. All additional information regarding the process can be found on the posting page. The return trip is on us.
Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.
Next door to Brent, on the same terms
Box it properly in Wembley — looking is free.
Do not leave the equipment powered on. The important point is what was being requested of the device just prior to failure: whether it was a shift of temperature logging, exporting data, or an overnight copy that never completed. There are no costs associated with simply looking at what happened, and the subsequent written figure quoted to you is contingent upon your approval.