Water damage and heat damage
Get a quote first, either by calling us or filling in the form; once you have done that, send the drive sealed and send it immediately, or take it to our Guildford intake lab, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no appointment necessary). Whatever happens to it thereafter, do not let it dry out. Every item that the water or the soot came into contact with (the connector, the contact pads, the board itself) is something which can be cleaned, replaced or purchased. The case surrounding the platters is sealed specifically for this purpose, and house fires very rarely reach temperatures high enough to affect what lies behind the seal. Afterwards there is no repair bench which can reverse two things: a hopeful press of the power button while the drive was still wet, and fourteen days in a drawer while the corrosive salts fix themselves onto the pins. We will give you a free appraisal, the cost for recovering data from a single drive is £300 + VAT, that cost is put to you in writing before any chargeable work begins, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.
Put it to an engineer — the first look costs nothing
0203 0868633
| How it shows itself | The usual reason for it | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing at all from it since the water got to it | The board has been ruined. Shut away from all of it, generally speaking the platters read as normal. | You must pack it in a sealed bag while it is still wet. |
| It activates the circuit breaker, or cuts off the power supply too. | A shorted board, and each time you try to start it up, it creates another voltage surge which goes towards the head preamplifier. | Go no further with it |
| White or green crust forming across the contacts | Corrosion is underway and nothing will halt it without assistance. | Get a quote first, then send your drive by post today, not next week |
| Fire damage but housing remains undamaged | The alloy casing protected the platters; a finished board is merely a part that we purchase. | Keep it closed and keep it level. |
| Soot particles worked into the pins and the breather filter | It is both an abrasive and an acid, so one rotation and it grinds its own surfaces | Do not touch the soot |
| Saltwater has penetrated through it. | The chloride passes through the board and penetrates into the recording layer; no other liquid causes such extreme damage. | Damp, bagged, sealed, posted |
As soon as your parcel arrives here, an engineer assigns a case number that same day, prior to determining what has really failed, which is the first thing done and costs you nothing. In addition to a note of what can and cannot be recovered from your drive, you will receive at the same time the fixed, written price for restoring what can be recovered. You can accept this quote, or decline it, which will result in no further obligation on your part and nothing owed to us.
Wetness is what we wish to see when receiving a drive; thus when opening the sealed bag at this end, there should still exist moisture inside. If it is allowed to dry en route, crystals will form upon the contact pads rather than staying in solution within the water. Drives with heat and soot damage travel the other way about: untouched, soot and all.
Once deposits are cleaned away, the contact pads become bare metal again. Then a donor board of the same model is installed, carrying over your ROM chip, previously removed from your original board.
Cleaning a board only affords temporary relief from corrosion, since the corrosion will resume behind it. Thus the image is created straight away, and with a complete sector-by-sector copy of your data in hand, your drive is put into storage while all subsequent operations occur against said copy.
You will see what has been recovered as a list first, after which a bill exists. Accepting the list means that a bill will be issued. Rejecting the list means that a bill will not be issued, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. The recovered data travels from here back to you via new media purchased specifically for your project, with the cost of postage paid by us. Your case is not resolved (i.e., "closed") until you personally view the files on a computer of your own.
Hardly any of it is dramatic. The split pipe behind the kitchen units. A sprinkler head letting go over a comms cabinet on a Friday evening. A washing machine dumping its contents on the floor at three o'clock in the morning. A fire-damaged office, and a drive bagged up and removed from it that same afternoon. These are routine jobs, and most of them remain routine; however, the way yours goes is largely decided prior to sealing the package, depending upon whether a power button had been pushed and upon the number of days that passed before it was posted. Neither of those things can be fixed once the drive reaches this facility.
No one powered it up to check if it worked properly, nor did anyone place it near a heat source, and that is why two decades of family photos were restored. It was placed in a bag while still wet and posted the same afternoon. After cleaning the pads and moving the ROM to a donor board, we successfully completed the full image by day four.
Mostly. Water usually causes damage to the electronic circuits that control the drive's functions, but since these are standard components, replacement is relatively easy. In addition, water does not penetrate into the sealed housing that contains the data storage platters. Ultimately, two factors determine what type of work needs to be done: did someone press the power button while the drive was wet, and how soon did it reach us?
Not at all. It introduces two new issues that were previously nonexistent. Grains of rice shed starch dust and fine grit, and both tend to settle on the electrical contacts. Even worse than that, corrosion continues unabated throughout this entire period, because there is moisture shut away in some part of the unit that no grain will ever get near, and it continues to feed the corrosive reaction.
Frequently, yes. The data storage platters are contained within a metal shell, and cooked electronics are merely parts to replace, so only those units whose metal shells have warped or suffered other forms of distortion, or those where soot worked past the breather filter, can create difficulties. Get a quote first, either by phone or by using our quote form. Once you have your quote, send the unit exactly as you found it, i.e. sealed, uncleaned, and with no attempt made to restart it, or bring it directly to our Guildford intake laboratory, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no appointments necessary).
No. And yes, that is the exact opposite of what people would normally expect. As water evaporates from surfaces and seals, it leaves behind everything that was dissolved in the water and sets it down permanently onto the contact points and into the seams. Place it in a sealed bag while it is still wet. When the bag is opened at this end, it should still contain moisture.
It doesn't cost you anything for us to look at it. All we do is give you a breakdown of what opened and what did not, plus a single fixed price to complete, written down before you agree to let us continue. On most jobs, you only pay if we recover your data. Please don't turn on the drive until you get that breakdown.