Flood-damaged storage device recovery: can data be recovered?

The complexities of flood-damaged storage device recovery

Flood-damaged storage device recovery is complex. When computer equipment is affected by flooding, recovering the data on the affected computers, laptops and servers is usually a priority.

If important data such as photos, videos, databases, emails or business documents wasn’t backed up off-site before the flood, it is important to act quickly and get your hard drives, SSDs, servers, RAID arrays and other storage devices to a specialist data recovery lab straight away. Waiting too long, or trying to test or repair the device yourself, can reduce the chances of recovery and make it more costly in the long run.

What to do (and not do) with a wet device

• Don’t power it on, not even once to “see if it works”. Electricity and water together can short out the circuit board and damage the drive further.
• Don’t dry it with heat. No hairdryers, radiators or ovens. Heat can warp components, and drying lets residue and corrosion set in.
• Don’t open it or try to clean it yourself. Opening a hard drive outside a cleanroom lets dust onto the platters. This applies to salt water too: don’t rinse the device or attempt any cleaning at home.
• Do bring it to a lab quickly. Corrosion, especially from salt water, keeps working over time. Ideally, seal the device in a plastic bag (wrapped in paper towel if it is dripping) and get it to a specialist so it can be checked straight away.

What is needed to recover data from a flood-damaged device?

Take the example of a wet hard drive, RAID drive or external drive. Having the right equipment and following the correct procedures matters, so that corrosion and residue can be cleaned off properly in a controlled, anti-static environment. If needed, an ultrasonic bath can be used to clean corrosion and residue from the circuit board. This doesn’t repair the board. It removes contamination so the board can be properly inspected, and any damaged traces or components can then be repaired at board level.

The data is then either read directly, or components such as heads are replaced in our cleanroom to bring the drive to temporary working order. We make a sector-by-sector copy and work from that copy, never the original. Once the data has been recovered, it is returned to you on a new drive.

SSDs, laptops and phones can also be affected. Many modern laptops, including Apple silicon and T2 Macs, have storage soldered to the main board and encrypted, so recovery depends on getting that board working again. Board-level repair is often the route to the data.

Don’t throw away a water-damaged drive until it has been fully evaluated

How much can be recovered from a flood-damaged device depends on the damage involved. Getting a proper evaluation from a professional data recovery lab is one of the most important steps. They can identify which components are damaged or corroded, what needs to be replaced, or whether the recovery can be completed using logical techniques.

Data Retrieval is an independent data recovery lab in London SE1. We recover data from all kinds of storage devices affected by flooding and liquid damage, including hard drives, SSDs, flash drives, RAID arrays and servers, and laptops. You can read more about our data recovery process.

Once your data is safe, consider keeping an off-site or cloud backup so a future flood can’t take everything at once.

Get help quickly

We offer a free initial assessment, usually the same day, and a fixed, no-obligation quote before any work starts, with an emergency service for business-critical systems. Call 020 7064 4996 or book online, then drop the device off or send it by courier.