Heads of the Valleys · Merthyr Tydfil
Merthyr Tydfil data recovery. Wales's smallest borough, much of it on single drives; then one stops.
Merthyr Tydfil is the smallest principal area in Wales — 58,800 people at the 2021 Census, 22nd of 22 — sitting on the southern edge of Bannau Brycheiniog where the A470 meets the A465. It is also where a plant described as the UK's largest active armoured-vehicle facility runs on 57 acres with around 250 staff, and where a Grade I castle in a 160-acre park holds the borough's collections. Small place, serious files. Inspection and CAD records, scans nobody can make twice, EPOS and CCTV from the retail parks along the A4060, and a great many one-PC firms. Post the drive; the first look costs nothing.
Describe the symptoms to an engineer
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Five jobs that come down the A470.
Not listed here? Try the triage →| What shows up | Why it lands here | Do this now |
|---|---|---|
| A supplier's server holding inspection records | Drawings, CAM files and test paperwork on one box in the office | Mark each disk with its bay, then send the drives bare |
| A dental practice machine in CF47 that will not boot | Patient records have to be kept for years, and there is one copy | Stop using it before anything more is written |
| A four-bay NAS in a small office gone quiet | Sold as the backup, it is one box with several disks in it | Power it down; the bare drives travel, not the case |
| A scanned archive on an external drive that clicks | Photographs and survey files nobody is able to capture twice | Tell us what is stalled behind it and it moves up |
| A card of trail footage that will not mount | A whole season of filming for one operator, on one card | Stop using the card and send it as it stands |
Four things that apply in Merthyr.
Questions from CF47 and CF48.
Do you cover Dowlais, Gurnos and Treharris?
Yes, and Pentrebach, Troed-y-rhiw, Merthyr Vale, Pant and Cefn Coed with them. What decides it is the courier map rather than a driving radius, so a CF47 address and a CF48 one sit the same distance from the bench.
Can a drive be handed in somewhere in Merthyr?
No. The intake lab is in Bristol — about 70 road miles, the A470 down to Coryton then the M4 east over the bridge. It takes weekday drop-offs if you prefer to drive; most post it, tracked and insured.
One drive in the array has failed. Does that need dealing with now?
Yes, treat it as urgent. A degraded array keeps handing out files, which is exactly why it sits untouched until the next disk fails and everything stops together. Do not rebuild. Shut it off, put the bay number on every disk, the dead one too, and send them bare.
Work has stopped while this is missing. Can it be hurried?
Yes. Flag it when you book and the case is marked urgent: it goes to the head of the imaging queue, runs through in one sitting rather than being slotted between other work, and you get a real timescale once the diagnosis allows one.
Pages people often read next.
One insured parcel from Merthyr Tydfil, and we begin.
Do not switch it back on. Tell us what happened, and wait for the free diagnosis before agreeing to anything.