CF44 · head of the Cynon Valley · Aberdare
Aberdare data recovery. The Cynon Valley's shops, farms and workshops keep one copy, on one disk.
Aberdare stands at the head of the Cynon Valley, in Rhondda Cynon Taf — the main town of a CF44 valley whose built-up area of nearly 30,000 at the 2011 census takes in Aberaman, Cwmbach and Llwydcoed. Coal is history here now: the last local pits closed in the 1960s, and Tower Colliery at Hirwaun, the last deep mine in Wales, closed in 2008, its site now Zip World Tower. What runs today runs on disks. A cable or engineering workshop keeps its CAD and inspection log on one server; a hill farm on the valley tops holds its accounts and livestock records on a single drive; Coleg y Cymoedd, town-centre shops and care providers each work off a machine with no copy behind it. The Aberdare branch of the Metro runs half-hourly down to Cardiff and the A465 was dualled through Hirwaun in 2025, but a failed drive still comes to us by post — down the valley to the M4 and east to the Bristol lab. Send it tracked; the first look carries no charge.
Describe the symptoms to an engineer
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What fails in a valley of small firms.
Not listed here? Try the triage →| What shows up | Why it lands here | Do this now |
|---|---|---|
| A NAS on a valley workshop floor that will not mount | The CAD files, the CNC programs and the inspection log all live on it | Power it off, record each disk's bay, and post the drives bare |
| A farm-office PC on the valley tops, dead after a power cut | One machine in an outbuilding holds the accounts and the subsidy claims | Post just that drive, and leave the machine switched off |
| A shop's CCTV recorder showing a blank timeline | The footage an insurer or the police will ask to see | Stop it recording over the footage; send the recorder or its disk |
| A two-disk server that has been limping along on one disk | Nobody caught the first disk dropping out of the pair | Both disks are imaged first, before any rebuild is attempted |
| A contractor's laptop that started clicking after a drop | Kit carried up and down the A465 all week takes a knock | Shut it down now, and do not switch it on again |
What is different about Aberdare.
Four questions from around the Cynon Valley.
Which parts of the Cynon Valley are covered?
All of CF44, across the Cynon Valley: Aberdare town, Trecynon, Aberaman, Abernant, Cwmbach, Cwmdare, Llwydcoed, Robertstown and Cwmaman, with Hirwaun and Penywaun to the west. Down the valley, Abercwmboi, Mountain Ash and Penrhiwceiber are covered on the same terms.
A NAS in the workshop started rebuilding and then it froze. Do we cut the power?
Yes — switch it off at the wall. A rebuild drags a read from every remaining sector on the surviving disks, the heaviest demand you can put on a tired drive, and one that stalls halfway can turn a recoverable set unrecoverable. Take the disks out, label each with the bay it filled, and send them bare — the Bristol lab works from the disks, not the enclosure.
The farm accounts sit on one drive on the valley tops, with no other copy. Is it worth sending?
Yes. Stop using it first — every power-up of a failing drive can cost you a little more of what it holds. Keep it switched off, tell us on the phone how it went, and send it in. One drive, bare or still in the machine, is £300 plus VAT to attempt; a card or USB stick is £250. The free look comes first, and the fixed figure is set in writing before anything is charged.
Can we drop a drive off in Aberdare rather than post it?
No — Aberdare has no counter, and Cardiff none; the Cardiff office deals in post, not drop-offs. It is all handled at the intake lab in Bristol, which will take a hand-delivered drive any weekday, should you rather bring it over yourself, though nearly everyone posts. Send it tracked and insured, and the journey home is ours.
Pages people often read next.
Send it down from Aberdare; we start the day it lands.
Do not switch it back on. Tell us what happened, and wait for the free diagnosis before agreeing to anything.