Urgent cases · specialist work
Around Cardiff the cost of a stoppage takes different shapes. A freelance editor has a delivery date and one shuttle drive. A finance office at Central Square has records the regulator expects it to produce. Priority with us is one thing only: a place at the head of the order of work. Anything posted to us marked urgent is unpacked on arrival, diagnosed the same day, and goes on the imager in front of everything else for every hour we are open.
Describe the symptoms to an engineer
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| What shows up | What has gone wrong | Do this now |
|---|---|---|
| The one server the business depends on is down | Each disk copied first, then the set rebuilt from those copies — always urgent | Say 'business down' first |
| A rebuild died part-way through and has been left alone since | Wise — every extra go chews away at what survives | Leave it off and ring us |
| There is a hard deadline on the data | Payroll, a hearing, a tender — the bench plans back from that day | Tell us the date first |
| The sole copy of the family photographs has failed | A family album is treated here with the urgency of a company server | Either way, we tell you straight |
| File names are being rewritten as you watch | Stop the spread, preserve the evidence, then recover | Disconnect the network lead; do not cut the power |
The diagnosis costs you nothing. Every item that arrives is logged under a case number of its own, and an engineer works out what has actually failed — then tells you plainly which files can come back and which cannot. The price follows that: one fixed figure, in writing, and no work begins until you have read it and said go ahead.
Two words cover it — business down — or name the deadline. We flag the job urgent on that call, open a case number for it, and hold bench time before your parcel has even been posted.
We open the box and diagnose it that day, then the imaging runs uninterrupted ahead of every other drive waiting. Phone as often as you want; whoever has the job will say exactly where it has reached.
As soon as the files you flagged at the start are proved readable, the data goes back — encrypted transfer, new media in the post, or collected from the lab.
Nothing is billed while you are still deciding. A complete listing of what came off the drive reaches you first, and the invoice only follows your yes. Files travel back on media bought new for the job, return postage ours, and we do not close it here until every one of them opens on the machine you will use.
A timescale rests on five things: which part has failed, how many terabytes have to be read, what state the surfaces are in, whether a matching donor sits on the shelf, and what was already attempted before the drive was posted. None of the five is impressed by urgency. That is why you get opening hours on this page rather than an always-on badge. Priority cases from Cardiff and South Wales run without a pause for the full working day, 9am to 5:30pm, Monday to Friday, are diagnosed on the day they land, and get a real date as soon as one exists.
The awkward part was a rebuild already running on the RAID that sat under the booking system. Nothing on the array was touched until every disk had been imaged on its own. The set was then put back together in software from those copies, the database checked, and bookings were going through again by Thursday lunchtime. It sat at the front of the queue from the first call.
It depends on what has broken. Where the mechanics are fine and the damage is logical, priority work usually wraps up within a working day or two. Arrays, and drives with sick heads, run longer. The imager dictates the pace: a tired sector reads at its own speed whatever you pay. You get a real figure once we have looked, not on the phone beforehand.
Nobody is. Treat with suspicion any firm suggesting head swaps continue unsupervised once the building empties. Priority here puts your drive at the front of the bench, worked without a break for every hour the door is open — 9am to 5:30pm, Monday to Friday. Published hours tell you more than a badge does.
No, and anybody who gives you one before seeing the drive is guessing. With a physical fault it turns on the condition of the platters and on whether a matching donor exists — neither is visible from a phone call. What you do get: first place in the queue, a same-day diagnosis once it lands, and a firm date the moment one is honest.
Yes. Your drive moves ahead of everybody else's, and that costs something. You will find the amount on the one written quote we send, so the number is in front of you when you decide. Diagnosis stays free either way.
A failing drive has only so many starts left in it. Spend none of them. Keep the power off, and the free diagnosis will tell you what is still readable.