CM13, CM14, CM15 · Brentwood
Data recovery, Brentwood. One or two directors, no server, no second copy, and everything on the one desktop.
After the town's largest corporate HQ at Warley closed in 2019, what a place of about 55,000 residents has kept is a lot of experienced people working for themselves, and that remains the nature of the trading community. Here we typically find a limited company run by one or two directors, without a server behind it and without copies elsewhere. From within CM13, CM14 and CM15 there are financial advisers and mortgage brokers that retain client suitability files and advice records as required; insurance and claims professionals; accountants who use a desktop version of Sage or Xero for client accounting purposes, with seven years of client documents stored in one folder; solicitors that hold matter files and conveyancing packs; private clinics that hold patient data, consent documentation and clinical photography; estate agents; media and event companies holding project archives and artwork masters; the motor trade with vehicle service histories; and a very large group of tradespeople involved in building and home improvement, working across the villages and Green Belt, whose external drive was last used when the machine was initially set up. The vast majority of the borough is open countryside, with nine civil parishes and six country parks, and the land, stock and management records that go with them. There are two main pricing brackets that cover most of what arrives: £300 plus VAT per single drive and £500 plus VAT and above per job where several drives are included. Nothing is fetched from any address, and there is no counter in Brentwood or London. Obtain a quotation first (via telephone or completing the quotation form) and then post the media or drop it off at our Guildford intake lab, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (appointment is not necessary). The examination is complimentary.
Put it to an engineer — the first look costs nothing
0203 0868633
What Brentwood sends in.
Different fault? Try the finder →| What is going on | What arrives from here | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| An adviser’s computer that stops before it finishes starting. | Files containing client suitability information and advice records maintained under retention. | Disconnect the power source; obtain a quote first, then post just the disk. |
| A practice server that can no longer see two of its previously visible disks. | All client ledgers, payroll and seven years of accounting records, contained in one location. | No rebuilding of the system. Just label the bays; obtain a quote first; send the bare hard drives. |
| A laptop demanding a BitLocker key. | The 48-digit key was never documented by anyone. | Remove power before another member disk fails |
| Clinic's external drive, clicking since Friday. | Every client’s consent documentation and photographic record of all visits. | Do not continue to use it: a clicking drive uses up its remaining life to click. |
| A builder's rugged external drive that refuses to mount. | Photographs, certificates, and records of completed work now encased in plaster. | Commonest item received on this bench; simply do not plug it in. |
Packing it up for the trip.
Asked most in CM13.
Is a CM13 address in Essex or in London?
Either one is possible, and this is the local catch. CM13 includes Hutton, Ingrave, Herongate and the Horndons and also goes into parts of both Basildon and the London Borough of Havering; CM14 covers Warley and also goes into Havering; only CM15, which covers Shenfield, Doddinghurst and Kelvedon Hatch, is Brentwood alone. As nothing is ever collected, the boundaries do not affect the price.
Nobody here does IT. What does finding out cost?
None at all. There is no charge for examining a machine, whether that machine works for you again or not. And after that there is only one figure, created by the examination, which then holds: if it's just one hard disk then £300 + VAT; if it's a camera card or a USB stick then £250 + VAT. You see the file listing before any payment is asked for, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. This laboratory does not take phones or tablets.
These files may end up in a dispute. What comes back?
Nothing is ever written to the hard disk; it is only ever read. All work is performed on a read-only copy of the disk instead of the actual disk itself. When completed, the drive comes back exactly as it left, with the recovered files on new media along with a record, file by file, of each item that could be read versus those items that could not be accessed (the format an accountant, an insurance company or a solicitor can use). Where a formal instruction is needed, that band opens at £800 + VAT.
The office NAS has run a disk short for months.
Please remove the unit from power now. Please do not allow anyone to start a rebuild, because once a rebuild has started, it puts pressure on the next tired hard drive. Get a price estimate first, before sending us the unit (call us for pricing or complete the form), then pull the drives out of the NAS if possible, label each drive for the bay it was originally located in, and post them or drop them off at our Guildford intake lab, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no appointment necessary). If you are unable to remove the drives, please feel free to send the NAS intact, including all hardware components and in its original casing. When recovering data from a RAID set or server, the disks must be removed from the system; please carefully lift each disk and label each one according to which bay it originated from.
Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.
Near Brentwood, on the same terms
Post it from Brentwood; the look is free.
Remove power and keep the drive unplugged. Each time a failing drive is turned on, there is less chance of recovering any usable data. First describe over the telephone how the machine had been behaving. There is no cost for the examination. A single written figure will follow, and any chargeable work will require your permission prior to proceeding.