Clean water itself typically does not destroy your drive. The problem is the “stuff” left behind when clean water evaporates (minerals, salt, debris) and subsequent corrosion once an electrical current is sent through the wet components of your hard drive. That is also why the two things everyone wants to do when they have a hard drive with a small amount of moisture in it (dry it out, test it) are the two things you should not do.
Rice doesn’t help with anything. Hair dryers also push moisture deeper in and can warp parts of your computer. The act of using power on a wet board will cause contamination to turn to short circuits and create electrolytic corrosion. Usually the damage done by the corrosion will be greater than the actual water.
Most forms of liquid or fire damage don’t destroy the platters directly. In many cases they leave the underlying data intact.
All the well-intentioned information circulating about how to save drives from the effects of water is incorrect (and bad).
Letting a drive sit to dry will not eliminate contaminants. Instead, it will make them worse. When water dries up, the minerals and salts it brought into your drive will be left behind all over the drive and, if the enclosure was damaged enough to allow moisture access, those mineral salts will now coat the platters. Removing those salts after they have dried can be quite a bit more difficult than when they were still wet.
The heat will make the damage worse as it will warp the parts and draw moisture into areas that were dry. Additionally, there is no more damaging thing than turning on the power; when a wet board shorts out, electrical flow through an electrolyte creates enormous acceleration of the rate of corrosion. If your drives have got wet we recommend sealing them in a bag (damp) so they remain sealed and send them to us as soon as possible.
Time sensitive work, because the drive can continue to deteriorate until the issue is resolved.
First we open the drive and inspect its internal condition. We do not turn on anything that could potentially energise something (i.e., power) before determining that it is safe to do so.
We clean the board and interior components to remove mineral, salt and soot residue that causes the continued deterioration, using a cleaning solvent rather than just letting things dry out.
If liquid has contaminated the platters’ surface area, we clean those as well. Any residue left on them will destroy the read/write head on the first spin-up.
If corrosion is present, we repair the corroded board or replace it completely with a like-new board; we transfer the original ROM adaptives into a new ROM unit and swap in replacement heads from an identical donor system where heads are damaged.
The process of decontaminating your drive does not restore your drive, so we immediately copy (clone) the data read-only to a new drive, as the drive may only support one successful read.
All decontamination processes carry committed costs.
A water or fire damaged hard drive will cost from £300 +VAT based upon an email or written quotation provided by ourselves after we have completed our complimentary 48-hour diagnostic. Payment of 50% deposit is required prior to us proceeding with the work, and payment of the remaining balance is only made when the work has been successfully completed.
Please do not dry out your damaged hard drive before shipping it to us; ship it to us sealed and still damp as soon as possible: rust/corrosion does not wait! Full write-up example: a Maxtor salvaged from a burnt-out laptop.
We will perform a free diagnosis of your device upon receipt, and ask some questions as to what may have occurred, after which one of our engineers will then provide you with an exact written quotation prior to performing any work.
Before dropping off or posting your device please request a quotation either by telephone or using our quotation form. The first step to recover your data is to get the device to us. Please ensure that you pack the device securely, include your contact information and then forward it to us. Once we have completed the free diagnostic of your device we will provide you with your exact price in writing prior to commencing any further work.
Posting it? We would suggest using a tracked and insured delivery method. Want to drop it off? That’s okay too. Monday to Friday, from 9am to 5:30pm is good; no appointment necessary: simply prepare the item as described above.
If you want a few more details first, fill out this form and let an engineer go through it and send you back a custom quote.
We’ll be in touch shortly. For anything urgent, call 01865 593000.
Most common questions asked regarding water/flood damage and fire damaged hard drives.
No. Concentrating the contaminants with drying will leave mineral and salt residues on the entire surface of the PCBs (printed circuit boards) or the hard drive platters; both are much tougher to remove after they have dried. Send it as soon as possible and seal it in plastic when wet.
No. Rice absorbs a bit of ambient moisture but does absolutely nothing to remove the mineral/salt deposits that cause the real damage. What’s more, rice slows down your recovery while corrosion continues, and ultimately makes things worse.
This is the most damaging thing you can do. A damp board shorts out, and the high amperage flow of electricity through the electrolytic solution greatly increases the rate at which corrosion occurs. The check is typically what converts a recoverable unit to a difficult one.
Yes, frequently. Platters can be exposed to higher temperatures than many people would suspect, and more commonly than not it is the burned-out electronics, warped casing and/or acid/smoke residue that kill the drive, all of which are addressable. Also, the fire itself may be less harmful than the fire suppressant water.
True emergency, unlike most recoveries. Corrosion will continue to damage components until the contaminant is removed, and contaminated liquids such as seawater or soft drinks are aggressive. In this case days count, not weeks or months.
From £300 + VAT per drive, after initial free 48-hour diagnostic and written quote. Deposits of 50% are taken when decontamination work is required, and you are not charged the remaining 50% unless data is recovered successfully.
A free written diagnostic quote, a 10,000-part inventory that stands behind all repairs. In most cases you only pay if we recover your data. The faster you send it to us the quicker the recovery process will start.