CR3, CR6 and CR8 · Caterham, Surrey
Data recovery, Caterham. A career's worth of client work on one laptop, backed up in the same room or nowhere.
Caterham uses the CR postcode area. It has the 01883 telephone dialling code. And none of the bits of London are within it. The postcode district CR3 is for the area known as Caterham, and the majority of CR3 is in the local authority area of Tandridge district in Surrey. It is also one of four postcode districts designated CR (namely CR3, CR5, CR6 and CR8) that span the county boundary. This is the first fact about the area to understand. The second fact to understand is that Caterham cars have not been produced in Caterham since 1987, and the company left Caterham altogether in 2013. What is located in Caterham instead is the head office of a regional house-builder, Croudace, which has its land files, planning applications, CAD and BIM models, photographs of sites it is developing, valuations and sales documents divided between that office and a set of site cabins. Around the central office location in Caterham is what may be described as one of the highest concentrations of sole traders on this site. These sole traders include management consultants, IT contractors, surveyors, financial advisers, executive coaches and small design firms, and they operate on their own from Caterham, Warlingham, Whyteleafe, Woldingham and Chaldon. In terms of the job, it always takes exactly the same shape: a single laptop or a small office NAS, a career's worth of client work stored upon it, and an external drive containing a backup, provided a backup exists, located in the same room. Caterham School and de Stafford School also maintain pupil records, admissions records and safeguarding records. The high street retailers retain till and stock data. Job photographs and a single accounts file document the activities of the building and motor trades operating in the valley, which climbs from 110 to 236 metres. No counter service exists anywhere in Caterham or in London. Obtain a quote first, by phone or with the form, before sending us any equipment. Send the item by tracked post to our Guildford intake laboratory, or bring it in person to the laboratory, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no need to book an appointment). We do not charge for examination of items submitted to us. The fixed cost associated with recovering data from equipment submitted to us is documented on paper prior to commencing any billable work.
Put it to an engineer — the first look costs nothing
0203 0868633
What comes in from CR3.
Different fault? Try the finder →| What is going on | What arrives from here | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| A consultant’s laptop that will not complete booting up | Ten years' worth of proposals, models and client correspondence | Obtain a quote first, then post the disk alone and leave everything else |
| A land file drive from a site cabin, now clicking | Planning submissions and last month’s progress photography on it | Unplug immediately; that noise is contact damage |
| An office NAS with four bays, now running one disk short | The share still opens, so the failure went unnoticed | Remove power before another member disk fails |
| A survey card that the reader wants to reformat | Drone footage of ground currently under concrete and backfill | Do not format it; get a quote first and send it in the state it came out in |
| Folder after folder renamed overnight, each folder with a text file left inside it | Ransomware, and the external backup plugged into the same infected machine | Disconnect the equipment from the network before proceeding; see the ransomware page. |
Packing it so it survives the trip.
Four questions Caterham asks.
A CR postcode — does that make this a London job?
No. CR3 is the postcode district for Caterham. The majority of it is situated in Tandridge district in Surrey, and it can be identified most quickly by the 01883 telephone dialling code rather than 020. Four postcode districts designated CR span across the county boundary, namely CR3, CR5, CR6 and CR8. Therefore blanket claims made regarding services available throughout the CR postcode area often go wrong. We do not collect from any of these postcode districts, therefore the prices charged remain consistent regardless of which one you are in.
One laptop, a career of client work on it. What does the first look cost?
Nothing. Examination is free, and you will receive a written figure for our charges prior to making any commitment, after which it holds. Our prices are as follows: £300 + VAT for one hard disk. Card media or stick type media: £250 + VAT. Any job involving multiple disks: from £500 + VAT. Prior to settling the invoice, we will provide you with a list of items that were successfully recovered, for you to check. We do not handle phones and/or tablets.
Client material is on it. Is posting it sensible?
Yes. Neither your name, nor the name of your client, appears on the job docket. Every job is processed using a unique case reference number rather than your or their names. We only access those areas of the disk necessary for a data recovery operation, and no copies are made anywhere else. Working copies are deleted from our systems thirty days after your drive has been returned to you. Easy Data Recovery Ltd has registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under reference number ZC173784, and details of how long we retain your personal data are outlined in our Privacy Policy.
A bay on the office NAS has been amber since spring. What now?
Turn the power off at the wall socket now, before the unit tries to rebuild and write new data over what is left. Leave it where it stands, powered down, and get a quote first, by phone or with our quotation form. Remove the individual disks from your NAS if possible, and label them with their respective bays so the original order is not lost. Otherwise, please forward the entire NAS, including the case and all disks. Either way, post it to us or drop it off at our Guildford intake lab, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no appointment needed). Servers and RAID sets should be sent to us as separate disks: remove the disks from the server or RAID case and label each disk with its bay number.
Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.
Near Caterham, on the same terms
Post it tracked from any CR3 counter.
From now on, leave it switched off, because each attempt to start it costs some of the surface that can still be read. When you ring, tell us what was open on the machine and which folders have to come back first. The examination is free, a written figure follows, and you decide before anything is billed.