According to the National Weather Service, Hurricane Florence will be one of the most serious storms in decades. It’s expected to punish the Eastern Seaboard, destroying homes and businesses throughout Virginia and North and South Carolina. Current data suggests that Georgia will also be affected.
With state officials warning millions of residents to evacuate, data loss is a relatively minor concern. Nevertheless, Datarecovery.com hopes to help victims recover lost files by offering a 30 percent discount on all of our data recovery services for affected individuals.
Understanding the Threat: How Floods Damage Computer Systems
When any natural disaster hits, Datarecovery.com receives numerous cases from business owners, government administrative offices, and personal computer users who have lost data. Flooding is an especially serious issue, since water-damaged hard drives, solid-state drives, and servers pose unique challenges for data recovery engineers.
Flood water isn’t clean, of course, and it can introduce contaminants that cause corrosion and other serious problems. Electronic damage is common after flooding, and time is a major factor—the longer a computer user waits to seek help, the lower the chances of recovery.
The vast majority of flood-damaged hard drives are completely recoverable with the right tools and knowledge. Datarecovery.com has handled thousands of data recovery cases involving floods, fires, and other hurricane-related damage, and we’re one of the only companies operating real, full-service laboratories at every one of our locations. We’re also preparing our labs for an influx of flood-damaged drives, which should help to improve recovery probabilities for flood victims.
If you’ve been affected by the flood and you need to recover data from a hard drive, server, or any other device, take these steps immediately:
Make sure that your computer is powered off and unplugged before handling any media. Ground yourself to avoid static shocks; remember, water and electricity aren’t a great combination.
Don’t attempt to dry, clean, or repair damaged media. This includes (but is not limited to) hard drives; to clean the drive without damaging it, you’d need special equipment including a controlled clean room environment, so the safest course of action is to contact an expert data recovery laboratory.
Contact our engineers to discuss the situation. Every case is different, and we can provide advice to help you preserve and ship your media safely.
Of course, the best course of action is to avoid data loss in the first place. If you’re reading this before Hurricane Florence hits, backup any important data off site. Make multiple backups of mission-critical data, and take appropriate steps to protect your media before the hurricane hits.
We’re wishing for the safety for everyone in the path of Hurricane Florence. To discuss data recovery options for your case, call us today at 1-800-237-4200.
