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Data recovery: Fire Damage

Natural disasters, including lightning strikes, fires and floods, can prove to be the most challenging data recovery exercises. Hardware will very often have been partially or totally destroyed. For some, the disaster may be magnified, because backups are often not stored off-site or in a fire and waterproof safe. Many businesses have faced bankruptcy after a natural disaster caused the loss of their customer database, financial records, inventory files, and manufacturing data.

In the case of fire damage, data can often be recovered from a hard disk by specialists even if all the plastic components and drive electronics are melted or charred. Fire-damaged hard drives often have undamaged head assemblies, which means that if the drive's electronics and external components are replaced, the data will very often be recoverable. Of course, in cases where the disk drive experiences intense heat the internal components may have been damaged, to the extent that the platters themselves may have melted. In this case there is no hope of recovering data.

Another unfortunate side effect of a fire is the damage done by water and other fire-fighting materials. Of course, the alternative is total destruction, but the legacy of fire containment may include widespread water damage. Smoke and other debris particles can also cause problems over time, by invading the disk drive and damaging the sensitive read/write heads and magnetic media.

The data loss associated with this type of damage is unlikely to be remedied in-house, and usually the hardware will have to be sent to a data recovery specialist. This should be done as soon as possible, with the greatest of care in handling and packaging. It is inadvisable to even attempt to operate the hardware if it is visibly damaged; this may well cause further damage, making recovery more difficult or impossible.