How To Save Data From A Wet Hard Drive

One of our worst nightmares... spilling something on the computer or lap top especially when we have extremely important or personal data saved in it. Life just happens, and so do accidents. If you ever find yourself in this situation do not panic (well maybe a little) because there is help.

First thing's first and it is the most important step, so you need to act fast. Power your device down and make sure you wipe the outer surface as fast and carefully as you can before more fluid finds its way into the depths of your computer. If you keep a good absorbing cloth nearby at all times, you will have better chances of soaking up most of the water before too much damage is done. However, if you are not home, and you have nothing handy near you, then at least try to get to a paper towel or napkin as fast as you can. When you are not a computer expert you can never tell how much water went into the hard drive and how much dust had been there before the accident. That is why you need to be careful when you are trying to dry your hard drive on your own. But if you will take it to a specialist it is better to keep it in a sealed container and take it to a specialist that way.

If you can not take it to a specialist do not attempt to turn your computer back on because you will never know how much water is inside and if you try to do that, chances are you will cause a shortage and your computer's future might be at risk. Just let it dry for a while. After this, things get a little harder. You will need to remove the drive and have a specialist investigate the damage. If you do not know how to remove the drive, then you will need to take the whole thing to a specialist and let them do it for you. The first thing the specialist will look at will be the shortage.

If you don't have the option to take your computer to a specialist, one thing you can do is to hook up your drive to an old computer you have at home. Many of us have old ones lying around. You just need to make sure that the old computer is safe and has no electrical problems. If you can turn it on, and it starts with no problems, your first action should be copying all data from the drive onto a safe device like a flash drive or an external hard drive. This will save your important files even if the drive gives you problems in the future. Knowing that you have a back up is definitely a sigh of relief.

TH2 specializes in Orange County IT services, Orange County IT Consulting and San Diego IT Consulting.