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PDR / Towns and islands / Isles of Scilly

TR21–TR25 · the Isles of Scilly

Isles of Scilly data recovery. Everything leaving these islands has to go by post, and that’s how we do it.

At the time of the 2021 Census, there were approximately 2,100 people living across five inhabited islands, with a unitary council of their own running everything from planning to the airport. The Isles of Scilly generate a reckoned 85% of their income from tourism. More than a third of the workforce is self-employed, and nine flower farms continue to cut narcissi on St Mary's from October to March. Superfast broadband reaches virtually every premises, however only about two thirds of premises have full fibre. This makes restoring from the cloud weaker advice here than almost anywhere. There is no bench on Scilly and never will be, so it always goes by post.

Cover it for its value · return post is ours Nothing to pay for the diagnosis What we quote is what you pay

You will be talking to an engineer
0800 6890668

What comes off the islands.

Yours not here? Start at the triage →
What turns upWhy it ends up hereWhere to start
A portable drive that no longer spins upYears of photographs, and never more than one copyStop trying it. Leave it turned off and send it when you receive a quotation
A guest-house office PC that died mid-seasonAll bookings, guest details and the card machine records can be found on one single hard driveSay so and it goes ahead of the queue
A boatman's till and manifest machine gone deadSeasonal passenger lists along with that year's takings are stored on its internal diskAllow no-one to reinstall anything onto it. Send us the drive after receiving a quotation
A Network Attached Storage device in a flower farm's packing shed which stopped mountingSelf-employment is prevalent on the Isles of Scilly, and that box is the back-upDisconnect the power supply. Obtain a quotation. Number each disk according to its bay position. Post them (or if they do not come out, send the entire NAS)
A survey card that cannot be opened on the laptopCards are often reused throughout the same season until eventually one failsEject it. Do not use the card again. Once you receive a quotation, post the card tracked and insured
Sending it to us: once you receive your quote, the drive is sent to the intake lab as a tracked and insured parcel, with a printed shipping form included in the package. There is no charge for returning it to you. Details on packing are on the contact page.

Getting it off the islands and posted.

Two legs, then the mainland runNothing sent to our lab arrives in one direct leg. The parcel first crosses the sea before travelling up the UK mainland. Royal Mail charges inland rates both ways, and many courier companies refuse next day delivery to the postcode range TR21–TR25. Get a quotation first, then send your drive tracked and insured by post.
Packing decides a lotA fair proportion of the damage reaching this bench was done in transit, not when the drive first failed: a bare drive dropped into a jiffy bag, or one tossed loosely into an oversized box. When posting drives, always use a rigid box. Pad all sides. Let nothing move. You can find the shipping form to print on the sending page.
If salt or damp has reached itDon't try to dry it. Don't open it. Keep power well away from it. Water isn't what kills a platter. It is the residue left after the water has gone, and salt air is worse than most. Bag it wet. Tell us where it has been sitting, then leave the cleaning to us.
A TR21 address changes no priceWe diagnose it for free. After that there will be a single written figure, and that figure never changes. In most cases you only pay if we recover your data, from £250 + VAT, with return postage included within that.

What Scilly asks.

Scilly is a great distance away from everywhere. Is that important?

Not to the work. All jobs sent here travel by post anyway, so the drive travels and you remain where you are. Royal Mail charges the same to and from the islands as elsewhere in the UK, although allow an additional day each way. It will be examined free on the day it arrives in Bristol, and the postage back to you is paid by us.

An external drive of photographs has stopped. Any hope?

Yes, frequently. The commonest arrival at our bench is a portable drive carried about for ten years before it finally stopped spinning up, or started clicking. Please don't connect it again. Each time you try to start it again, a little more of it is lost. As soon as it arrives here, we will create a complete image, and do the work on that copy.

The season's bookings are all on one business computer. So what now?

Take the plug out of the wall and stop there. Remove the drive from the PC and post us only the drive itself. If it is a NAS unit, remove the disks from the unit and mark each disk with the bay it came from. Then post us only the bare disks once you have a quote. If the disks do not come out, please post us the entire NAS unit. A box left to power up and retry slowly gets worse. Please tell us which files the season depends on.

Could it go over on the Scillonian?

In season, yes. Scillonian III runs from March until November. There are no passenger ferries during the winter months; however, the freight ship Gry Maritha operates throughout the whole year. Either way, do not attempt to arrange the individual legs yourself. Once you receive a quotation, simply hand it in at the post office counter as tracked, insured post. Outgoing post is collected by one o'clock, and there is one delivery a day.

Pages people open after this.

Water, soot and heat → NAS drives → Photos and images → Every town we cover →

Next door to the Isles of Scilly, the same terms again.

Penzance →

Simply post it from St Mary's and we shall get on with it straight away.

Keep it unplugged. Let us know how it failed. Nothing is agreed until the free diagnosis has told us what caused the failure.

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Book a free look Sending it in to us