Flood Recovery of Hard Drives

When flood strikes, everything can go. Typically, when archives personnel think ‘flood,’ thoughts might go straight to the 19th century newspapers, rare and unique manuscripts, or other paper materials. Today, these thoughts must include computers and other electronic devices as well. The digital back-ups, the photocopies, the expensive hard drives and software connected to specific licensing keys are equally affected by flood and can also be salvaged.

After a flood, there are a few basic things to consider: make sure all electronics are dry before turning on the device. A good rule is to shut down all power within the vicinity until the water is gone. Secondly, classify what type of water you are facing--grey or black water is hazardous at best, and can be extremely damaging to your equipment. Approach any flood with caution and understanding-- the toxicity of the water may be too much for you or your institution to handle. Thirdly, if you want to access the data within your now-damaged computer, you MUST remove your hard drive from the computer and treat it separately from the rest of the computer. A computer can be expensive, but it is wholly replaceable, and after a computer goes through water damage, it can no longer be trusted to fulfill basic tasks. A computer can grow very hot, and any residues left inside from polluted water could cause the computer to fail, or possibly ignite.

In my mini experiments during the flood, I placed five hard drives, removed from their computers, straight into clean water, lake water, and oily lake water. Of the five, two were in oily lake water, two in lake water, and one in clean water. After twenty- four hours, I removed the two hard drives from the oily water, and one from the lake water. After a week, I removed the rest of the hard drives, from the lake and clean water. After removing the hard drives from contaminated or ‘grey’ or ‘black’ water, especially so for the oily water drives, I used goat soap to cut the oil that stuck to the hard drives, then rinsed down the outside of the drives with clean water from the tap with the least amount of water pressure possible. I rinsed all of the drives with clean water to remove surface contaminants, sans the drive that remained in clean water.

The next step was drying in rice. When removing excess water from the drives, especially water from within the device, it is important to allow water to seep out into an absorbent substance. Rice is cheap, plentiful, and small enough to reach into the small, open cavities of the hard drive, yet large enough to not get lodged into the drive or the reader slots. The first two drives I pulled were left submerged in rice for two weeks, while the third, fourth, and fifth drives I pulled were left in the rice for one week. While a few grains of rice grew mold, the plastics did not, and after assessing testing the relative humidity of the drives within closed containers, the drives were judged to be relatively dry enough to test.

Inside of the plastic containers with red-rimmed lids are where the hard drives were dispersed to dry. In the two wide white plastic trays, a laptop and additional drives were left to dry.

A drive after being pulled from rice. The 'fuzzy' grains of rice are mold ridden, but there were not many of them, nor did their state of mold affect the drive.

Another pulled drive with grains of rice still attached. I removed any grains that held on with a micro-spatula.

To test how affected the drives were, I used a computer that, besides lacking a hard drive, was completely fine, yet wholly disposable. When testing water-damaged electronics, recognize the danger. After any amount of water affects an electronic device, all data may be totally gone or the device may be inoperable. You may never get back what is on that computer, so operate with care and low expectations.

In testing, I took baby steps-- instead of plugging the drive into the computer then going straight to on, I wanted to see how the drive was going to power up-- within all computer hard drives is an internal battery to help with start-up, and if that battery is damaged, the drive is gone. I plugged the drive into the system, keeping the test computer isolated and close to a fire extinguisher. I then, with the computer plugged into a surge protector, turned the computer on. I left the side panel of the computer open in order to openly observe the drive. Without a monitor to watch, nor a keyboard nor mouse, I was only testing to see if the computer could maintain power with the hard drive spinning for five minutes. Hard drives that are not solid-state, or a solid single card, are like CD’s, they spin and turn to access their information. If a hard drive is properly working, you can actually FEEL the hard drive going through it’s proper cycles. All I did was turn the computer on and leave my hand on the drive, feeling for the spin and listening carefully to the turn.

Three of the drives that I pulled from the waters after twenty-four hours powered perfectly. There was never a hitch in the sound or the buzz of the drive working. With the other two drives, there were significant problems. The drive that had been in lake water for seven days gave a god-awful sound akin to a record skipping a beat in a track again and again. With the drive from seven-days of clean water, there was a single hitch of the drive turning and one loud pop, then the drive went about it’s cycles again though it was very slow.

All I wanted to test was the potential of the drive. The next step after this would be to attempt to start the computer through to operation and try and access the files within. While all the hard drives I dipped into water had information on them, they all lacked operating systems-- No Windows 7, no Apple OS X, nothing. I used the drives as one would use an external drive, like a thumb drive, because it simplified the checking process-- there was less for the system to fail with if only a few files were affected by the water instead of total system failure. There is still also a great danger in handling hard drives that may still be coated in caustic chemicals, and I would heartily refrain from heating the drives from oil and lake water for extended periods of time or at very high temperatures as the insides of a computer can get especially hot.

Finally, a laptop was left to soak in clean water for seven days. Upon removal from the water, it was placed into a container filled with rice. After a week of draining, several people worked to extricate the hard drive from the laptop. While they were successful, the water inside the laptop was trapped inside after the flood with no chance to escape. The water held inside ate away at the hard drive’s battery and leaked out onto the front of the drive. I would not attempt to start this drive no matter what. If you believe that your electronics are releasing battery acid, DO NOT TOUCH THEM. If you come in contact with battery acid, wash exposed skin immediately and keep any affected surfaces contained until it can be cleaned up. You can safely clean away battery acid with gloves and soapy water, but show adequate caution when around it.

Overall, the hard drives came through with flying colors. Despite the crude nature of the water these drives went through, fast response kept the drives going even after complete submersion. If you can not get to your equipment within a 24-48 hour window, not all hope is lost, but you need to focus on removing the contaminants from the drive and then allowing the water to work it’s way out.

When dealing with electronics, realize that you may not have the equipment or expertise to properly recover your information. In order to avoid further damage to the contents, or toxic exposure to yourself, get in contact with a company that specializes in information recovery. In these situations, also consider how replaceable the information is. If you have undamaged backups, it may be safer and more cost-effective to safely dispose of the damaged hard drives.