Hurricane Harvey is expected to wreak havoc on Houston and other Texas cities on Aug. 25th. Widespread flooding is possible, and indeed, probable at this point.
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.
There is good news, however: 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 location.
We’re hoping to help Hurricane Harvey victims by providing a 35 percent discount on all of our data recovery services. 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 Harvey 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 Harvey. To discuss data recovery options for your case, call us today at 1-800-237-4200.
