A flood, spill or fire does not have to mean lost data — if you act fast. Our engineers clean the corrosion and soot, replace the damaged parts from our 10,000-strong inventory, and recover your data in-house.
$ bdr diagnose /dev/sda → Device: WD Elements (4 TB, USB) → Status: WATER DAMAGE — corrosion on board & contacts → Client: confidential · North Shields NE1 3DY $ bdr engineer-working → Decontamination: platters & internals cleaned → Donor board matched: from stock · 0 days wait → Imaging: 3.52 TB / 4.00 TB (88%) $ bdr verify → ✓ family_photos — 88,140 files → ✓ documents — 9,620 files → ✓ everything recoverable — saved
Powering a wet drive can short it instantly, and drying it with heat or rice lets corrosion and mineral deposits set on the platters — making recovery harder by the hour. Leave the drive exactly as it is, keep it sealed, and get it to us as fast as you can.
Liquid and heat attack a drive in different ways — from corrosion and shorts to soot and warping. These are the faults we see, and recover from, most often.
In since 2002 we have recovered water and fire damaged drives from every major brand. If it stores data on spinning platters, we can almost certainly help.
Internal and external · 3.5" desktop and 2.5" laptop · SATA, SAS, IDE/PATA and SCSI · from 40 GB legacy drives to the latest 24 TB helium models.
Recovering a flood, spill or fire drive starts with cleaning, not reading. We decontaminate it, repair what is damaged, then read your data back — carefully, in the right order.
Bring in or post your drive. We assess the water or fire damage to the board, heads and platters and send a written quote — usually within 48 hours.
We open the drive in-house and carefully clean residue, soot, corrosion and mineral deposits from the internals and the platter surface.
We fit matched heads, boards or motors from our inventory to replace whatever the water or fire has destroyed.
Where the board is beyond repair, we transfer the original firmware to a matched donor board so the drive powers up correctly.
Once it runs, we clone the drive sector by sector to stable storage, working patiently around any damaged areas.
We rebuild your files from the image, check them against a file listing, and return your data on fresh media.
We backup your data to either an external drive and ship it back to you, or we also offer a free download service for your data up to 75GB.
Matching heads, boards and motors in-house means most water and fire damaged drives move straight to repair once cleaned — no waiting weeks for a donor to be sourced.
Tell us about your drive and we will get back to you, usually within 30 minutes during the day.
We will be in touch shortly. For anything urgent, call 0191 406 1051.
No hidden fees and no pressure — just a free diagnostic and a written quote before any work starts.
A snapshot of recent water and fire damaged recoveries, handled in-house. Names redacted, results verified.
Heavy corrosion on the board and contacts. We decontaminated the internals, fitted a matched donor board, and imaged the drive on the first pass.
Liquid had shorted the board. We cleaned the residue, replaced the board and transferred the firmware, and recovered the full volume.
Soot and smoke contamination plus firefighting water. We decontaminated the platters, swapped the heads, and recovered the bulk of the data.
Send us your device for a free diagnostic, and tell us a little about what happened — an engineer will review it and confirm your exact quote in writing before any work begins.
Getting your data back begins with getting the device to us. Pack it up safely, pop your contact details inside, and send it over — once we’ve run the free diagnostic, we’ll confirm your exact price in writing before any work starts.
Posting it? A tracked, insured service is what we’d recommend. Rather drop it in? You’re welcome Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm — just package the device up as above first.
Want a bit more detail first? Fill in the form with more about your issue and an engineer will review it and send you a custom quote.
We’ll be in touch shortly. For anything urgent, call 0191 406 1051.
The questions we are asked most about water, flood and fire damaged drives.
Do not power it on, and do not try to dry it out with heat or rice. Powering a wet drive can short it out, and letting it dry allows corrosion and mineral deposits to set on the platters. Leave it as it is, and get it to us as quickly as you can.
In most cases, yes — especially if it reaches us quickly. We clean the corrosion and contamination from the internals and platters, replace any damaged parts, then image the drive. The sooner we see it, the better the result.
Often, yes. We clean soot and smoke residue from the internals and platter surface, replace heat-damaged parts, and recover what the magnetic surface still holds. Fire-damaged drives usually have water damage too from firefighting, and we handle both together.
No — that is a myth and it does not work for hard drives. Rice cannot reach the sealed internals, and the delay simply lets corrosion set in. Do not try to dry it out; bring it to us promptly instead.
Yes, very. Corrosion and mineral deposits get worse the longer a wet drive sits, so the sooner we can clean and stabilise it, the higher the chance of a full recovery. If your drive has been wet, treat it as urgent.
Our standard price for a water or fire damaged hard drive is £300 + VAT. You get a free, written diagnostic first, and on most jobs it is no fix, no fee. Heavy contamination or severe heat damage may need a higher critical-recovery quote, which we always confirm in writing before any work begins.
Most water and fire recoveries are completed within 3 to 4 working days once you approve the quote, though heavily contaminated drives can take longer. The initial diagnostic is usually finished within 48 hours.
Every major manufacturer, including Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba, Samsung, HGST, Hitachi, Maxtor, Fujitsu, IBM, Quantum, SanDisk, LaCie, G-Technology, Buffalo, Verbatim, ADATA, Transcend, Silicon Power, Iomega, UnionSine, ModusTech and Intenso — in both 3.5-inch desktop and 2.5-inch laptop and external form factors.
You can drop it off at our Newcastle location Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, or post it to us fully insured. Ensure the drive is packaged and sealed, include your full contact details inside the package including Name, Address, Phone Number and Email Address so we can fully book in your drive. Once we have it, we will run the free diagnostic and send you a written quote before any work begins.
Free written diagnostic, no fix no fee on most jobs, and a 10,000-part inventory behind every repair. The sooner we see it, the better. Start your recovery today.