RG8, Oxfordshire and Berkshire · Goring and Streatley
Data recovery for Goring and Streatley. Two counties, one bridge, one post town, and one copy of everything.
Goring-on-Thames is located in South Oxfordshire; Streatley, across the 1923 bridge, is found in West Berkshire; and all addresses in both villages end in "Reading, RG8", despite neither village being in Reading. Neither has a business park or an anchor employer. What fails here is largely domestic, and most of the people involved are retired. At the time of the 2011 census, 31.7% of Goring's population were aged 65 or older, the largest share in South Oxfordshire. As such, many residents will have decades of family photos stored on one external drive, scanned letters, their family tree, and a computer tower in the study that has never been backed up. Around them are the home workers recorded in Goring's neighbourhood plan, small practices run out of offices and spare bedrooms (the local directory contains listings for HR consultancies, a wealth manager, solicitors and an accountancy), a 47-bedroom hotel, a youth hostel, care work and the golf club. Neither village has a counter, and nothing is collected. First get a quote, by phone or with the form. Next post the drive to the Oxford intake lab, tracked and insured for what it is worth. Alternatively, drop it off at the Oxford intake lab Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm; no appointment is needed. The look is free, and one written figure arrives before any chargeable work does.
An engineer answers, and looking is free
0800 6890668
Five jobs from two villages and two counties.
Different fault? Begin at the triage →| What you are seeing | Why it lands on our bench | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| An external drive of scanned slides that wants to be formatted | Years of digitising in retirement, and all of it kept on this one drive | Say no to formatting, unplug it, get a quote, then send it whole with its cable and power supply |
| A Windows 7 tower PC in the study that won't boot | Thirty years of working papers and the family tree, never backed up | Power off, pull the disk out, get a quote, and post only the disk |
| An accountant's laptop in January that stalls for a minute at a time | Every client's year-end stored on a single disk, and the disk has been reporting errors for weeks | Copy it off today |
| The recorder behind the bar will not play back, though all the cameras show live | One disk, worn out from recording over itself round the clock for years | Switch off at the plug, get a quote, then post the disk, not the recorder |
| A two-bay NAS in a club office that won't mount | The tee sheet, the members' list and the greenkeeping records, and the box was the only copy | Pull the power at the socket, get a quote, then post the disks labelled by bay, or the entire box if they don't come out |
Four things that are the same in both counties.
Four questions that come in from both villages.
Do you cover both villages, Goring-on-Thames and Streatley, and the lanes out to Gatehampton?
Yes, both, and which county you are in has nothing to do with it. Whether you send your drive from the Goring area of South Oxfordshire (Goring-on-Thames) or the West Berkshire side at Streatley, the route will be identical. The process begins by obtaining a quote via telephone, or completing the quote form, prior to posting your drive, tracked and insured, to the Oxford intake lab. Alternatively, drives can be dropped off there Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, no appointment needed. Drives from all addresses in RG8 0 or RG8 9 are subject to the same published price and go into the same queue. All locations on Gatehampton Road out to the station and along the A417 up towards the Downs are part of this. Nothing is ever collected. Therefore, a house high on the Downs and one on either High Street are treated identically. The first look is free and the carriage home is ours.
It is a parent's computer and nobody has the password. Can the photographs still come off it?
Generally, yes. Passwords for user accounts on Windows or on a Mac are not encryption, so if the disk itself is working properly, the files can be read from it directly without needing the account password. They come back to you on new media, with a list of all of your recovered data. The only thing preventing this is full-disk encryption: BitLocker on a newer Windows computer, or FileVault on a Mac, which needs its recovery key to unlock. This means that you should look for it first, under the Microsoft account or Apple ID that the computer was originally set up under. Also, please get a quote first, by phone or with our quote form, before you post anything to us. Leave the machine switched off in the meantime and please do not send the actual computer; only send the disk. Storage soldered to the board (such as T2 and Apple silicon Macs, and soldered laptop flash) is not taken on; if you're not sure which kind you have, ring us first. We charge £300 + VAT for one disk.
Goring is in Oxfordshire and Streatley is in Berkshire. Does that change anything?
Not for this. Two parishes, three councils and two counties all post to the one Oxford intake lab at the same published prices; there is nothing in the case number that shows which side of the Thames it came from. The only place you see the county boundary is on the envelope: both villages' addresses read "Reading, RG8" even though neither village is in Reading and Goring is not even in Berkshire. The councils are a different matter. On 16 July 2026 the Government said it was minded to put both villages under one new council from 1 April 2028, so two places divided by a county boundary since before Domesday may soon answer to the same council for the first time ever. Until then they do not, and either way the postcode alters nothing about how we handle your job.
Is there anywhere in Goring or Streatley to hand a drive in?
No. There isn't a counter in either of the villages and neither is there one in Reading; the imagers, the donor shelves and the bench are all in our one Oxford intake lab, and this is where we open every job. Get a quote first, using the form online or by telephone. Then post it from wherever is most convenient to you, tracked and insured, by whichever courier or postal counter is closest, and it will generally arrive under the bench by the next working morning. Alternatively you could drop it off at the Oxford intake lab yourself, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, without an appointment; the shipping form shows where to go. Either way, we pay for the journey back.
Where to go next from Goring and Streatley.
Next door to Goring and Streatley, on the same terms
Get a quote first, then box it up in Goring or Streatley.
Turn off the power supply and don't switch it back on. Then write down the symptoms while they are still fresh: any noise, any message displayed, any indicator that changed. The look is free; your price will be given to you in writing; nothing chargeable starts until you have given permission.