Cause of loss · flood or fire
Platters shrug off water. Files come through blazes that leave the computer a shell. The damage comes later, from kindly meant rescue attempts — switching it on 'just to see', the airing cupboard, the rice — and from delay, since corrosion sets in inside hours. Bag it and post it now.
Speak to an engineer about it
0800 6890668
| On screen | What that tells you | First step |
|---|---|---|
| Lifeless since the leak or flooding | The board has taken the water; inside, the platters are very likely untouched | Bag it damp and post it |
| Knocks out the socket or power supply on connection | A short on the PCB; each retry drives current through the head preamp | Stop trying it |
| Furry white or green deposits round the contacts | Corrosion has taken hold and is still moving | Time is against you |
| Came out of a fire in one piece | A sealed casing protects the platters, and a melted PCB can be swapped | Treat it carefully and leave it closed |
| Soot in the ports or vent holes | Acidic, gritty contamination — lethal once the disk spins | Do not clean it, do not power it |
| Dunked in sea water | Chloride goes after the magnetic coating itself, the harshest damage of all | Leave it damp, sealed up |
As soon as it lands with us, your device gets its own case number. An engineer works out the fault, says what can genuinely be pulled off, then puts one fixed price in writing — no charge for diagnosis, no obligation, and no chargeable work until you approve it.
A soaked disk is bagged damp for the journey: drying crystallises dissolved salts onto the surfaces. Fire cases come packed, still shut, soot left alone.
We lift the corrosion, bring the contacts back, and fit a donor board carrying your drive's own ROM — new electronics around untouched platters.
The moment treatment stops, corrosion picks up again, so a full image is taken without delay — after that the original is finished with.
You sign off a complete list of the recovered files first; only then does the recovery fee fall due. Everything returns on fresh media, postage paid, and the job stays open until you confirm the files open at your end.
What every flood and fire job has in common: the result is settled before we ever see the drive — by whether somebody hit the power switch, and how quickly it got here. Bagged, untried and posted the same day, they come back routinely; 'I only gave it a quick go' on a soaked board is what turns a board swap into a head swap as well.
The owner got it exactly right: left unpowered, bagged while still wet, in the post by morning. We cleaned the contacts, swapped the shorted board with its ROM moved over, and imaged the whole disk that week — twenty years of family photographs, safe and dry.
Normally yes, provided nobody switched it on while wet and it gets to a lab soon. Water tends to spare the platters and ruin the circuitry — and circuitry can be swapped.
No. For sealed electronics, rice is a myth — it never gets inside, it adds starch and grit, and corrosion keeps spreading the whole time the device sits there.
Often. Platters sit inside a sealed metal casing, and a scorched board can simply be swapped. What really threatens the data is warping from heat and soot ingress — so leave the drive shut, unwashed and unpowered.
No — odd as it sounds, that's right. As things dry, dissolved salts and minerals crystallise on the surfaces. Seal a water-damaged drive; leave a salt-water one wet, until it reaches the bench.
Powering a damaged device up again costs you data. Start a case first; diagnosis is free whatever you decide.