These are the only jobs here where a week’s delay changes the answer. Corrosion does not stop when the drive dries — it keeps attacking the board for as long as the residue is in contact, and a month in a carrier bag routinely does more damage than the flood or the fire did.
$ cdr diagnose /dev/sda → Device: WD Elements (4 TB, USB) → Status: WATER DAMAGE — corrosion on board & contacts → Client: confidential · Bury St Edmunds IP33 $ cdr engineer-working → Decontamination: platters & internals cleaned → Donor board matched: from stock · 0 days wait → Imaging: 3.52 TB / 4.00 TB (88%) $ cdr verify → ✓ family_photos — 88,140 files → ✓ documents — 9,620 files → ✓ everything recoverable — saved
A flooded or smoke-damaged drive is not in a stable state. Water carries dissolved minerals and contaminants that begin corroding contacts and board traces immediately, and that corrosion continues for as long as the drive stays damp. Fire leaves acidic smoke residue that does the same thing more aggressively.
So the clock that matters is not the incident. It is the time between the incident and the drive reaching a laboratory, and every day in between is a day of ongoing chemical attack on the electronics.
The single worst thing you can do in that window is apply power. A wet board carries current where it should not, shorting components and turning a contamination problem into a burnt one. The second worst is drying it with heat, which bakes contaminants onto surfaces and warps components.
Send it wet. This is counter-intuitive and it is correct. A drive that arrives damp and has never been powered is a far better prospect than one dried out over a radiator and tested. Seal it in a bag with a little of the water it came out of if it was submerged, and send it.
The drive is opened in filtered air and assessed before any power goes near it. Where contamination has reached the platters, they are cleaned in a controlled environment — a delicate process, because the magnetic coating is microns thick and the contaminants sit on top of it.
Corroded boards are cleaned and, where components have failed, the adaptive ROM is transferred to a matched replacement. Head assemblies that have been through water are almost always replaced rather than cleaned, because contamination in the head gimbals cannot reliably be removed.
Then the drive is imaged, usually in short sessions rather than one continuous run, because a repaired water-damaged drive is not a stable device and imaging it is a matter of taking what can be taken while it holds together.
Water and fire damage is mechanical-class work from £300 +VAT, agreed after the free diagnostic. Cleaning, board work and head replacement are included in that figure rather than added afterwards.
A 50% deposit applies because clean-air time and parts commit at the start. If the platters turn out to be too damaged to read, the balance is not payable.
Do not turn it on and do not charge it. Take the battery out if you can. Get the drive out or send the whole machine. Every attempt to power it spreads the damage further across the board.
No. Heat bakes contaminants onto surfaces and can warp components. Rice does nothing useful. Send it as it is, sealed in a bag — damp is genuinely better than dried and tested.
Corrosion progressing over weeks, which is the usual pattern. The drive kept running while contacts degraded. Still recoverable in most cases, though less so than if it had arrived promptly.
Smoke residue is acidic and attacks contacts over time even where nothing burned. Drives from fire-affected premises should be recovered promptly rather than left in service.
More urgent than fresh. Salt is considerably more aggressive and corrosion progresses faster. Keep it wet, seal it, and get it here as quickly as you can.
Frequently, on business policies and some home ones. We provide a written technical account of the damage and the work carried out, in a form insurers accept, at no extra charge.
A free written diagnostic, no fix no fee on most jobs, and a 10,000-part inventory standing behind every repair. The sooner it reaches us, the better — begin your recovery today.