TR21–TR25 · the Isles of Scilly
Isles of Scilly data recovery. Everything off the islands goes by post, which is what we do.
The Isles of Scilly held about 2,100 residents at the 2021 census, across five inhabited islands, with a unitary council of their own running everything from planning to the water supply. Tourism brings in a reckoned 85% of island income, over a third of workers are self-employed, and nine flower farms still cut narcissi on St Mary's from October to March. Superfast broadband reaches nearly every premises, but only about two-thirds have full fibre, which makes restoring from the cloud weaker advice here than almost anywhere. There is no bench on Scilly and never will be. It goes in the post.
You will be talking to an engineer
0800 6890668
What comes off the islands.
Yours not here? Start at the triage →| What shows up | Why it ends up here | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| A portable drive that no longer spins up | Years of photographs, and never more than the one copy | Stop trying it; leave it powered down and post it |
| A guest-house office PC that died mid-season | Bookings, guest details and the card terminal, all on one box | Say so and it goes ahead of the queue |
| A boatman's till and manifest machine gone dead | Passenger lists and a season of takings sit on its disk | Let nobody reinstall over it — send us the drive |
| A NAS in a flower farm's packing shed that stopped mounting | Self-employment is the norm here, and that box is the backup | Cut the power, number each disk by bay, send them on |
| A survey card that will not open on the laptop | Cards are reused right through the season until one fails | Eject it, put nothing else on it, and post the card |
Getting it off the islands and posted.
What Scilly asks.
Scilly is a long way from anywhere. Does that matter?
Not to the work. Every job here travels by post in any case, so the drive makes the journey and you stay where you are. Royal Mail charges the same to and from the islands as anywhere else in the UK, though allow an extra day in each direction. It is examined free on the day it reaches Bristol, and the postage home is ours.
An external drive of photographs has stopped. Any hope?
Frequently, yes. The commonest arrival on this bench is a portable drive carried around for a decade that has finally stopped spinning up, or started to click. Leave it unplugged from here on, because every fresh attempt costs you a little more of it. Once it lands, a full image comes off and the work happens on that copy.
The season's bookings sit on one office machine. What now?
Pull the plug at the wall and go no further. If it is a NAS, lift out the disks, mark each with the bay it sat in, and post the bare drives; the enclosure is of no use to us. A box left to power up and retry gets steadily worse. Tell us which files the season depends on.
Could it go over on the Scillonian?
In season it could. Scillonian III sails from March to November and there is no winter ferry, so for a good part of the year nothing goes by boat at all. Either way, do not try to arrange the legs yourself: hand it in at the counter as tracked, insured post. Outgoing mail is collected by one o'clock, and there is one delivery a day.
Pages people open after this.
Next door to the Isles of Scilly, on the same terms.
Post it from St Mary's and we will get straight on.
Keep it powered down. Tell us how it failed. Nothing is agreed until the free diagnosis has said what the fault is.