DriveSavers Rescues the Impossible!
DriveSavers Data Recovery, the worldwide leader in data recovery services, has recovered data from storage devices that have been destroyed by some of the worst natural disasters imaginable, including infamous ones such as Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Ike, Southern California fires and most recently the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Recovering data that have been exposed to sustained water and fire damage, corruption, corrosion and erosion are just a few of the challenges that DriveSavers faces every day.
Most recently, computers, laptops and single hard drives destroyed by the Japanese tsunami were shipped by the leading Tokyo-based IT solutions partner, PC KIDS, to California where data recovery services were performed by DriveSavers. Data was recovered for individuals, families and small businesses in the Tohoku district. The recovered data included digital photos, critical financial records and other personal and/or business-related documents.
A resident from the Tohoku district, the area hardest hit by the powerful tsunami, was extremely appreciative to receive his data back. He had lost everything to the tsunami: his house, family members, pets and all his valuables. After searching through a mountain of debris, he found his PC computer. He didn’t think about the possibility of recovering the computer’s data because it was so badly damaged. Then, he read an article in the local paper about a company offering tsunami victims data recovery support. His hard drive contained many photos of his family that are more precious now than ever. DriveSavers was able to recover those photos, among other important personal files, and safely return them to him.
Getting the data back is always a challenge. The computers and laptops from Japan had been caked in thick, wet mud. Most of the drives appeared to have been heavily banged up and buried, not just submerged in water. Because hard drives are not hermetically sealed, ocean water and mud seeped into the drive’s mechanisms. Corrosion occurs much more quickly when exposed to salt from the ocean water, and these drives did show signs of corrosion, erosion and water spots from condensation build-up. That combination equates to a highly complicated and nearly impossible data recovery, which is common for disaster related recoveries.
The recovery process for the Japanese drives was unique. For added safety precautions, radiation detection equipment was installed for testing at both the point of origin in Japan and before entering DriveSaver’s facility. Next, DriveSavers engineers used a separate triage area to wipe the drives free of excess contaminants, mud and debris. The drives then entered DriveSavers Certified ISO 5 (Class 100) cleanroom, one of the most technically advanced, cleanrooms in the industry. Inside the cleanroom, data recovery engineers disassembled the drives using specialized tools and surgical precision to perform component-level repairs. Once a drive was in temporary working condition, the engineers made an image of the data, bit by bit, onto a target drive. The target drive was then used to reconstruct the data; if the file directory was not recovered, engineers matched the jumbled data to file types in order to reconstruct the original files.
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