W8, SW3, SW5, SW7 · Kensington and Chelsea
Data recovery, Kensington and Chelsea. One laptop, one external drive, no IT department.
This borough is very narrow and runs from north to south, and its two ends do genuinely different work. At the southern end, along Exhibition Road, there are the large museums: the V&A, the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum, with Imperial College beside them, all on the 87 acres of land purchased by the 1851 commissioners. What comes off their systems is collections management, digitised object records and 3D scanning, as well as the thing most people overlook, conservation and condition imaging, which describes an object on the day it was photographed and cannot be repeated once that object has been treated, sold or sent abroad. In SW3 the work turns clinical. The Royal Brompton Hospital is one of the five hospitals of Guy's and St Thomas', and the imaging and correspondence it holds sit under retention rules counted in decades. But the number that describes this borough best is a domestic one: the share of working-age residents who are self-employed, such as consultants, dealers off Portobello Road, designers, photographers and therapists. Each of them has their whole trading history on one laptop with one external backup drive behind it, and nobody to ring if something happens to the computer. Two things that outsiders get wrong about this area: Chelsea Football Club does not play its home games in this borough, as their stadium is in Fulham, and Harrods, which everyone files under Knightsbridge, is in Kensington and Chelsea. Nothing is collected and there is no counter in the Royal Borough or in London. Get a quotation first by telephoning us or using the form provided on our website. Once we provide you with a price, you can send your media via tracked, insured post or drop it off at our Guildford intake lab yourself, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no appointment necessary). All examinations are completely free of charge, and the figure is given on paper before any chargeable work is carried out. Costs vary depending on whether the job is a memory card or stick (£250 + VAT), one hard disk on its own (£300 + VAT), or several disks (from £500 + VAT upwards).
Put it to an engineer — the first look costs nothing
0203 0868633
The Royal Borough's postbag.
Different fault? Try the finder →| What is going on | What arrives from here | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| Dealer's laptop stopping at the maker's logo | Stock photography and provenance notes on the local disk | Pull the drive out, get a quote first, then post it on its own |
| Gallery office server, with a mid-week stoppage | Object photographs and condition reports a client will ask to see | First turn everything off and mark each disk with the bay it was sitting in. Then get a quote before sending the disks bare. |
| Same error message displayed on every screen in a small practice | Backup was performed every night to a folder on the same PC | Take a photo of the error message, pull the network cable and leave the power alone |
| External hard drive that has begun clicking | Fifteen years of documents from a sole trader (invoices, portfolio and client list) | Do not plug the external hard drive in again once it begins clicking. |
| PC belonging to a conservation studio that will not boot up | Pre-treatment images of an object already returned to its owner | Get a quote first, then send your disk. Do not remove the machine from your studio. |
Packing it in the Royal Borough.
Questions we get from the Royal Borough.
Does this take in the whole borough, Earl's Court and Kensal Green as well?
Yes, it does. The borough from north to south is covered by W8, W10, W11, SW3, SW5, SW7 and SW10. There are three districts (W8, SW3 and SW5) that belong solely to the Royal Borough; all the others are shared with a neighbour, and W10 belongs to four local authorities at once. None of that changes anything, as nothing will be collected by road. Get a quote first, by either telephone or our online quotation form. Media may then be posted to us by tracked, insured post, or you can bring it directly to our Guildford intake lab (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, no appointment needed), and the initial inspection is free.
Everything I trade on is on one laptop. Where do I start?
Without turning the power on. In this area the person with the problem is very often the business itself: a large share of working-age residents are self-employed, and for most of them the trading history, the client list and the portfolio are all stored on one computer. Obtain a quote first, either by telephone or using our online quotation form. Remove the four screws but leave the rest of the laptop on the desk, then send just the hard disk by post, or drop it off personally at our Guildford intake lab (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, no appointment needed). A single hard disk costs £300 + VAT.
The conservation images were made before treatment. Can they come back?
In nearly all cases. A condition photograph of an object, or a 3D scan taken of that object, describes that object on one specific day. Once that object has been treated, sold or sent out of the country, the opportunity to take another photograph or scan of it does not present itself. Therefore the original is never written to, and each attempt will be made on a read-only copy of the data. Obtain a quote first, by either telephone or our online quotation form. Then send us just the hard drive, or drop it off personally at our Guildford intake lab (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, no appointment needed), leaving your workstation where it stands. Prior to receiving an invoice you will receive a detailed file-by-file listing.
Will anybody come out to Chelsea or South Kensington to collect?
No, and we have never had to send anyone out, which is part of the reason why our pricing information can be published in the first place. A tracked, insured package sent by post takes less time to reach our bench than a driver would take to arrive, and as soon as the package arrives it enters the queue that same morning. If your damaged device is an unusual shape, please feel free to ring us on 0203 0868633 and we will work out the packing with you while on the phone.
Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.
Next door to Kensington and Chelsea, on the same terms
Send it from the Royal Borough and the work starts as it lands.
Power off, and don't restart it. With each further restart you trade readable data for nothing at all. Before you ring, determine what the machine was doing when it stopped, because that is where our bench begins. The first look is free, the figure arrives on paper, and you approve it before anything chargeable happens.