SA12, SA13 · Aberafan · Port Talbot
Data recovery, Port Talbot. The works, the port, the practices — much of it on one drive.
Port Talbot sits on the eastern shore of Swansea Bay, in Neath Port Talbot, with the M4 carried through the town on an elevated viaduct and the SA12 and SA13 postcodes on either side of it. It is the administrative centre of the county borough, a steel and port town of around 32,000 on the 2021 town count. Tata ended primary steelmaking here when the last blast furnace closed on 30 September 2024, after more than a century; roughly 2,000 people still work the site, now processing imported steel, and a £1.25bn electric-arc furnace, backed by a £500m UK Government grant, is due around the end of 2027. Around all of that sits a supply chain — engineering subcontractors, fabricators, inspection firms and hauliers into the deep-water port — alongside the practices, traders and freelancers of any town. Inspection records, CAD and P&IDs, patient notes, a card of footage from Margam or the beach: a great deal of it lives on one drive. Post it, and the first look costs nothing.
Describe the symptoms to an engineer
0800 6890668
What tends to fail around Port Talbot.
Not listed here? Try the triage →| What shows up | Why it lands here | Do this now |
|---|---|---|
| A fabricator's server that will not come up | CAD, P&IDs and inspection records from a plant shutdown, on one box in the unit | Note the bay each disk sits in, then send them bare |
| A haulier's PC at the docks that has stopped booting | Tachograph downloads, weighbridge tickets and delivery photographs, all held on it | Leave it switched off; do not reinstall over the disk |
| A four-bay NAS in a Baglan office gone silent | Bought to serve as the backup, though it is really one box holding several disks | Power it down; the bare drives travel, never the whole case |
| A practice machine in Sandfields that will not start | Clinical records kept for years, with one copy of them | Switch it off before anything else gets written to the disk |
| An external drive of Margam and seafront photographs, now clicking | A freelancer's image library, with no second copy anywhere | Switch it off at once; each restart risks more |
What is different about Port Talbot.
Questions from SA12 and SA13.
Do you cover Aberavon, Baglan and Margam?
Yes, and Sandfields, Taibach, Cwmavon and Pontrhydyfen with them. What sets the distance to the bench is the courier map, not a driving radius, so an SA12 address and an SA13 one arrive on the same terms.
An old engineering PC is being cleared as records move to new systems, and its disk is failing. Can the drawings be taken off first?
Usually. The machines being retired often hold the only copy of older drawings and inspection files, and they sit outside the routine backup, which is why they are most at risk just as they are switched off for good. Take the disk out, leave the PC standing where it is, and send that drive on its own.
One disk in our office server has dropped out, but it is still running. Does that need dealing with now?
Yes, treat it as urgent. With one disk down the array still hands back files, so it tends to be left running until the next drive drops and the lot halts together. Leave the rebuild alone and switch it off, number every disk to its bay, the dead one included, and post them bare.
Can I hand a drive in anywhere in Port Talbot?
No. Nothing is handed in — not in Port Talbot, nor in Cardiff. Your drive travels to Bristol under tracked, insured cover, or you may drop it at the lab yourself on a weekday. Most people post it, and we cover the leg back.
Pages people often read next.
One tracked parcel from Port Talbot, and the work starts that day.
Do not switch it back on. Tell us what happened, and wait for the free diagnosis before agreeing to anything.