Data Recovery Case File · Electrical & Environmental Damage · The Box Took It First
Water Reaching an Enclosure Does Not Reach Every Drive Inside It Equally
This enquiry concerns an appliance rather than a single device, which changes the assessment. A multi-drive unit "caught in a leak that happened in the building", not powering on, assumed water damaged, with a substantial amount of work on it. The unit is one object and the drives inside it are several, and water rarely treats them alike — which is why each member is established separately rather than the appliance being written off as a whole.
| Media | Multi-drive storage appliance of 8TB total subjected to water ingress from a building leak — unit not powering; member condition to be established individually |
| Reported situation | Multi-drive storage appliance in commercial use · water escape occurring elsewhere in the building · appliance affected by the resulting ingress · unit not powering on · water damage assumed by the owner · substantial working content held · recovery sought |
| Fault class | Liquid ingress to an enclosure with variable exposure across members — appliance electronics likely affected; individual drives potentially unaffected depending on position and orientation |
| Equipment used | Member exposure assessed individually rather than the appliance treated as one object · no power applied to the appliance or to any member · each member removed, examined under magnification and cleaned of residue where present · members imaged individually write-blocked under strict per-sector timeouts · array geometry reconstructed and the volume assembled offline |
The decode: why exposure varies, and what the appliance failing does not mean
Why the unit not powering says little about the drives: the electronics are the exposed part. An appliance's power supply and controller board sit where air and water enter, and they fail first.
Why that is the ordinary outcome rather than the worst one: the appliance is replaceable. Power supplies and controller boards are not where anything is stored.
How water actually behaves inside an enclosure: unevenly. It runs down and pools, so a member in a lower bay is exposed very differently from one above it.
Why the orientation of the drives matters as well: the openings are not symmetrical. Drives are sealed except for a filtered breather, and whether that opening faced the ingress affects whether anything reached the interior.
What that means practically: some members may be entirely dry. An appliance soaked at one end frequently contains drives that were never touched.
Why that matters more here than it would on a single drive: redundancy. An array needs a sufficient number of readable members rather than all of them, so a partial survival can be a complete recovery.
Why nothing must be powered before assessment: that is the mechanism of damage. Water on a board causes harm when current flows through the paths it bridges, and an unpowered wet board is not being damaged.
Why the temptation is strong and should be resisted: the obvious test is to try it. Plugging the appliance in to see whether it works is how an assessment becomes a repair.
Why time matters even though nothing is powered: residue keeps working. What the water leaves behind stays conductive and draws moisture from the air, so corrosion continues after everything appears dry.
What should happen immediately: the members labelled by bay and kept together. Order matters to reconstruction and is easily lost, and the drives should not be left inside a wet enclosure.
On the bench
Member exposure was assessed individually rather than the appliance treated as one object — enclosure power supplies and controller boards being the exposed components and failing first without storing anything, while water runs down and pools, exposing lower bays differently from upper ones. Drives are sealed but for a filtered breather, so orientation relative to the ingress governs interior exposure. Redundancy means sufficient readable members, not all. No power was applied at any point.
The outcome
Member exposure assessed individually, no power applied to the appliance or any member, and the volume assembled offline from individual images. Free assessment, one fixed written figure including VAT, charged per drive, with 50% of parts and labour upfront where a drive has to be opened. The decode: the unit failing is the ordinary outcome, because its power supply and controller are the exposed parts and they store nothing. Water pools rather than spreading evenly — some of those drives were probably never touched.
A storage appliance caught in a water escape
Don't plug it in to see whether it works — water damages a board when current flows through the paths it bridges, so an unpowered wet board isn't being harmed, and testing it is how an assessment becomes a repair. Take the drives out, label each with the bay it came from, and don't leave them inside a wet enclosure. Expect uneven exposure: water runs down and pools, drives are sealed but for a filtered breather, and an array needs enough readable members rather than all of them.
Don't power it — call Cambridge Data Recovery on 01223 655015; exposure assessed member by member, residue cleaned before assessment, volume assembled offline from individual images.
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Our case files are drawn from genuine enquiries received by our laboratory over the past ten years, anonymised to protect client confidentiality. Each one describes the diagnostic and recovery procedure our engineers apply to that fault, using the equipment listed.