EC2, EC3 and EC4 · the Square Mile
Data recovery, City of London. A firm's file server, one disk short.
Get the status correct, otherwise nothing else on this webpage will make sense. The City of London is not a London borough and has never been one. It is 1.12 square miles managed by the City of London Corporation, with a police force of its own which has been the national lead force for fraud since 2008 and runs the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau from within those boundaries. The Corporation’s July 2026 factsheet, using 2024 data, states that 676,000 people are employed in the area and that 24,060 businesses operate in the area. Only 1.8 per cent of those businesses are large companies. Legal work alone generates 55,000 jobs and insurance generates 22,000 jobs. The area empties every night, so the call rarely originates from a kitchen table. At Lloyd’s, 1 Lime Street, the underwriting record is the asset: slips, binder records and decades of long-tail claims history relating to risks whereby a claim could arise thirty years after the policy was originally written. In law it is the document management system and the deal room: the Law Society specifically states it publishes no retention period, therefore each firm will establish its own based upon limitation, its insurer and its client care letter, with five years of client due diligence records the only number the regulations fix. There are two corrections worth mentioning here. EC is not the same thing as the City: Hatton Garden (EC1N) belongs to Camden and the area around Old Street and Moorfields Eye Hospital (EC1V) belongs to Islington. Both the Barbican and St Bartholomew’s fall inside the boundaries, as do Inner and Middle Temple, which fall inside as Liberties, whilst Lincoln’s Inn and Gray’s Inn fall into Camden. There are no counters in the City or in any other part of London, but you can obtain a quote first, either by phone or via the form, and once it is obtained, post it tracked to our Guildford intake lab or drop it off there, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no appointment necessary). Examining it will cost you nothing, and the figure is agreed on paper first: cards and sticks at £250 + VAT, multi-disk work at £500 + VAT upwards, and between them the single hard disk at £300 + VAT and a camera recorder at £400 + VAT.
Put it to an engineer — the first look costs nothing
0203 0868633
What the Square Mile sends.
Different fault? Try the finder →| What is going on | What arrives from here | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| A partner’s laptop which stops at the logo of its maker | Local matter files and transaction bibles | Remove the disk; the laptop remains with you |
| A file server that will not come back online on Monday | Deal rooms and e-disclosure sets that a regulator may want to see | Obtain a quote first, then mark each carrier with its bay number and post the disks alone |
| A small NAS box under a broker’s desk, showing amber for weeks | The share still opens, therefore nobody thought to mention it | Remove power before another member disk fails |
| A USB stick the laptop now wants to format | The only export of a binder record off a system since replaced | Do not let anything format it; the stick arrives exactly as is |
| All files on the firm’s share renamed, a note dropped into every folder | A ransomware incident whereby the backup drive was mapped to the same server | Disconnect it from the network first; the ransomware page has the rest. |
Getting the parcel here intact.
What firms in the City ask.
Is there a counter in the Square Mile for handing one over?
No, and there is not one anywhere else in London either. The imaging equipment and donor shelving are both located in the Guildford intake lab. First obtain a quotation: contact us either via telephone or complete the form on this website, which will provide you with the cost of recovering your data. Once you have obtained a quotation, we recommend sending your media to us by a tracked and insured method. Alternatively, you may personally drop the media off at our Guildford intake laboratory, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, without requiring an appointment. Upon receipt of your media, an engineer will open your package on the next working morning and inspect the contents at no expense to you. We also pay for the return delivery of your media upon completion of your recovery project.
The matter files go back further than the server does. Can they come off?
Mostly. The Law Society does not publish a specific retention time; instead firms typically set their own based upon limitation, insurance requirements and their client care letter. There is one exception, however: five years for client due diligence records is the one period the regulations actually fix. This means that the typical retention period often exceeds the life span of multiple generations of hardware. One hard drive costs £300 + VAT, while a memory card or stick costs £250 + VAT. Phones and tablets are excluded.
Client papers are on it. Who reads them here?
The engineer performing the recovery process is the only individual who has access to your data. Your firm's name is not printed on any of the recovery documentation; we refer to your case reference number throughout the entire recovery process. We only access those sectors of the disk required to recover your lost data. No copies of your media are removed from our premises, and once your media has been delivered to you, thirty days will pass before your working copy is permanently deleted. Please refer to our Privacy Policy to see how long we retain different types of information.
A disk has dropped out of the set on the file server. Now what?
Before anything attempts to rebuild your partially failed disk array, disconnect the electrical power supply at the socket. Since writing data to a set that is already missing one disk will turn a recoverable RAID job into an unrecoverable one, you should cut the power immediately. Obtain a quote first, by phone or with the form, before sending your media. If it is a server or a striped array, the disks must come out of it: remove each individual disk, label each disk with its corresponding bay location, and post the disks by themselves to our Guildford intake laboratory using a tracked service, or personally drop them off at the laboratory, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no appointment needed). With a NAS unit, remove the individual disks from the enclosure in the same way if you can and follow the instructions above; otherwise send the NAS whole, case and disks together.
Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.
Near City of London, on the same terms
Post it from EC2 and it reaches the bench next morning.
Please do not turn it back on. What the equipment had been doing at the time of stoppage should be written down prior to calling, as this will help shape our work for the first hour on the bench. There is no charge for looking at it. One figure will then follow in writing, and nothing chargeable is done until you have agreed to that figure.