Hurricane Katrina and Recovery of Wet Data Storage Devices

Recovery of Wet Data Storage Devices and Hard Disk Drives

1. Never assume that data is unrecoverable, no matter what it has been through;

2. Do not attempt to power up visibly damaged devices;

3. Do not shake, disassemble or attempt to clean any hard drive or server that has been damaged - improper handling can make recovery operations more difficult which can lead to valuable information being permanently lost;

4. Do not use common software utility programs on broken or water-damaged devices;

5. For mission critical situations, contact and expert before any attempts are made to reconfigure, reinstall or reformat;

6. When shipping your hard drives, tapes or other removable media to Ontrack, package them in a box (we suggest a box twice the size of your media) that has enough room for both the media and some type of packing material that allows for NO movement. If the media can slide around at all, it is not ready to ship. The box should also have sufficient barrier room around the inside edges to absorb any impacts the box will take;

7. Wet media should be placed in a container that will protect shipping material from getting wet. Wet boxes can break apart during transit causing further damage to the drive;

8. If you have multiple drives, tapes or other removable media that need recovery, ship them in separate boxes or make sure they are separated enough with packing material so there will be no contact.