SL1, SL2 and SL3 · Slough
Slough data recovery. The big employers have their own IT; the rest of a borough of 158,500 does not.
Slough is the eastern end of Berkshire, on the same Great Western line as Reading, and a young, crowded, fast-growing town: 158,500 people at the 2021 Census, a median age of 34, and nearly a third of households renting privately. The big employers look after themselves. Royal Mail has sorted international post at Langley since 2003 and has its own IT; so do the factories and the biologics plant. Everyone around them does not — the freight forwarders, customs brokers and courier subcontractors at Colnbrook and Poyle, up against the M25 with Heathrow beyond it, whose transport database, customs entries and delivery photographs sit on one office PC; the four grammar schools and the academy at Langley, with coursework and media footage on a departmental drive; and the shared houses of Chalvey, Britwell and Upton, where one laptop is the only computer. No counter in Slough, no van, nobody to meet. Send the drive to the intake lab by tracked, insured post; the look is free, and one figure arrives in writing before anything is charged.
An engineer answers, and looking is free
0800 6890668
Five jobs SL1, SL2 and SL3 send in.
Different fault? Begin at the triage →| What you are seeing | Why it lands on our bench | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| A freight office PC at Colnbrook that will not start | Customs entries, delivery photographs and the transport database, all on one disk, with lorries waiting | Switch it off, take the disk out of the tower and post the disk on its own |
| A camera recorder over a transport yard at Poyle that will not play back | The gate camera is the only record of which vehicle left with which load, and a dispute has started | Take the power off and send the whole recorder, leads and all; nobody scrolls through it first |
| A media-department drive at a grammar school that mounts, then vanishes | A year of coursework films, each made once, with the exam board's date already fixed | Unplug it, stop trying it in other computers, and post the drive by itself |
| The only laptop in a shared house in Chalvey, and it will not start | A family's photographs and scanned documents, and nobody else in the house owns a computer | If the drive comes out easily, post that; if not, send the laptop whole and switched off |
| A calibration contractor's laptop that clicks, then stops | Instrument exports and certificates for the plants they work in, on a machine none of those firms' IT has seen | Off at once and no more tries; the drive travels, the laptop stays in its bag |
Four things that are the same from Poyle to Britwell.
Four questions from SL1, SL2 and SL3.
Do you cover the whole of Slough — Langley, Colnbrook, Britwell, Chalvey and the rest?
Yes: SL1, SL2 and SL3 as far as the borough runs — the town centre, Chalvey, Salt Hill and Upton; Britwell and Wexham; Langley, Colnbrook and Poyle out by the M25. Nothing is collected, so a courier office at Poyle and a shared house in Chalvey are on identical terms: post the drive tracked and insured, it is looked at for nothing on the day it arrives, and the carriage back is ours.
The customs entries and delivery photographs are on one PC at Colnbrook and it will not start. What first?
Power it off and leave it that way; a disk that has failed once gains nothing from a fourth attempt. If you can get the drive out of the case, post that on its own, tracked and insured; if not, send the tower whole. Say on the phone that shipments are waiting on it. The job is marked priority, the disk is imaged the morning it arrives, and the date you are told is one you can plan round. One drive is £300 + VAT, fixed in writing before any chargeable work begins.
A school media department's drive has failed with the coursework films on it. Can a school send it?
Yes. Schools post drives like anyone else; what differs is the paperwork, so say if a purchase order has to come first and the one written figure goes over the same day. Unplug the drive, stop trying it in other computers, and send it as it is. Everything that comes back is listed film by film, so the exam board can be told precisely what exists. An external drive is £300 + VAT.
Can a drive be left with someone in Slough rather than posted?
No. There is no counter in Slough and none in Reading, no van, and no meeting anywhere. Media goes by tracked, insured post to the intake lab, which does accept hand-ins on weekdays at the address printed on the shipping form. Ring 0800 6890668 before you box anything awkward — a whole recorder, a tower — and the packing gets sorted out on the phone.
If this sounds like yours, start here.
Next door to Slough, on the same terms
Pack it in Slough; the figure reaches you before any work does.
Power it down and leave it down. When you ring, describe how it behaved as it stopped — the noise, the message on the screen, the light that changed. The look costs nothing, the figure arrives in writing, and nothing is charged before you have agreed the figure.