waterlogged hard drive recovery

Fri Nov 18 16:16:30 PST 2005

On Fri, 18 Nov 2005, William Ward gmail wrote:
> I would expect the drive mechanism is watertight, but the circuitry on
> the outside may be ruined.  So maybe by getting another drive of the
> exact same model and switching the circuitboards, one could get one to
> work?  Seems logical to me at least but I know nothing of the data
> recovery business.
> 
> On 11/18/05, basem moussa <basem at bingojones.net> wrote:
> > I've got a friend working for a national nonprofit with a branch in
> > New Orleans.  She posed the following question.  Anyone ever recover
> > data from waterlogged drives?
[snip]

On Fri, 18 Nov 2005, Paul M. Moriarty wrote:
>
> Why not call one of the reputable places like Drivesavers and ask them?

I'm combining responses to 3 emails into one reply.

I have used Drivesavers twice through a previous company and have a high 
view of them.  They are located in Novato, CA, and are quite friendly to 
the most grizzled, tired, and unbathed sysadmin.  Web site is 
http://www.drivesavers.com/.

They can and will take the platters out of a hard drive and attempt to 
recover data from the platters themselves.

The question to ask yourself is:  How much are you willing to pay to
recover the data?  I believe a laptop hard drive recovery was several
thousand dollars in 2000.  (We took the gamble that the heads hadn't 
crashed onto the platters and lost the gamble, but we viewed that as an 
acceptable risk.)

Mr. Ward's approach is reasonable if you are comfortable taking apart hard 
drives.  I'm not comfortable with that level of mucking about, unless it 
is extremely important data and I'm paying, but that's my opinion.

I would at the least give drive savers a call or try the google search 
that Jim Kavitsky suggested.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Drive Savers, other than the very 
expensive coffee mug that is sitting in my cupboard at home.

-----
John Costello - cos at indeterminate dot net
"You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back."--Unknown