Customer description and recovery process:

    Macao was impacted by violent Typhoon Hato, which caused serious damage and loss. Due to inwelling, many pieces of electronic equipment were seriously damaged. Once a property management company in Macao came across such conditions. The hard drive of computer for elevator management system in one residential building was damaged, which resulted in suspension of use of the elevator. Residents of the building suffered unspeakably. They urgently hoped to resume use of the elevator. The property management company discovered that there were two feasible schemes. One was to replace the whole elevator management system; the other was to recover data in the hard drive damaged. After careful consideration, the customer chose to recover the data for the reason that expenses of replacing the system were relatively expensive. Through Internet search, the customer contacted the Company, and immediately arranged personnel to send the hard drive to the Company for inspection. After inspection, engineers of the Company discovered that the hard drive had been soaked by sea water, and was beginning to erode. Immediate treatment was needed. The engineers took apart the hard drive in a dust-free environment, and cleanse the parts which were polluted within the hard drive. The hard drive contained very precise components. That was why the cleansing steps needed to be very cautious. Upon completion of cleansing, professional equipment was used for extraction of information on the hard drive. After that, data on the hard drive was reorganized and read. It was verified by the customer that all data was completely recovered. The whole elevator management system resumed operation.

Reminders:

    We hereby want to share some experience on how to handle the case of hard drive soaked by water. First of all, if the hard drive is soaked by water, it shall not be electrified for inspection. The reason is that electrification may cause the pollution point within the hard drive to expand, and result in data recovery becoming more difficult; secondly, the disk may gradually oxidize as time goes by after being soaked by water. If the water soaking the disk is sea water, the corrosion may become more serious. For this reason, in case of hard drive soaked by water, data recovery shall be carried out as soon as possible. The success rates of hard drives sent to the Company for data recovery within one week after the typhoon were high; however, success rates of hard drives sent to the Company later than that were relatively poor because parts of the hard drives sent then were corroded.