Typhoon Yolanda has caused massive destruction to infrastructure in the Visayas region where many buildings including hospitals were reduced to rubble. In such situations, crucial data such as patient records would have survived the impact if data had been backed up at a remote location, says Kroll Ontrack, provider of data recovery services.
According to the Philippines government’s raw statistics, the region’s typhoons are getting stronger with a recorded wind speed of 320km/h in the past 13 years. These recent disasters and statistical records magnify the importance of data backup and recovery.
“In addition to large corporations outsourcing data backup services, consumers should also invest in the safety of their data to ensure all personal information is available during critical situations. Our team of experts at Kroll Ontrack has years of experience in offering data recovery services to suit the needs of our customers. It is true that we cannot predict the scale of calamities such as the Haiyan typhoon, but we can adopt the necessary measures to preserve data,” says CK Lee, Country Director Asia – DST, Kroll Ontrack.
Image credit: Kroll Ontrack
While some may have to face the possibility of losing valued data, Kroll Ontrack advises the following:
1. Do not attempt to power up equipment damaged by water. If water has infiltrated the hard drive or electrical components, electrical power can leave the hard drive unrecoverable and be hazardous to individuals handling the hard drive.
2. Do Not Dry the Hard Drive. Whenever media is damaged by water, the first instinct to remedy the situation is to try and dry it out. However, the contaminants contained in water are often not visible to the human eye and will damage the media irrevocably. Residue left on the hard drive platters and circuit board corrosion will need to be treated by in-lab professional engineers.
3. Keep the hard disk wet until you get professional help. Although it sounds paradoxical, keeping a hard drive wet aids data recovery. Kroll Ontrack recommends placing the hard disk in a sealed container or plastic bag to prevent it drying out until professional engineers can dry the platters and other components in a sterile environment.
“Never assume that data is unrecoverable, no matter what it has been through,” says Lee. “Amongst the most remarkable case histories is NASA’s Space Shuttle Columbia hard drive which plunged into a lake after travelling for 39 miles through space. Kroll Ontrack engineers managed to recover 99 per cent of the information stored on the drive.”
Free Consultation For Flood Affected Customers
At the same time, Kroll Ontrack is offering flood victims hard drive consultation and evaluation for dekstop, laptop, notebook and external hard drive recoveries.
In addition, Kroll Ontrack is offering a 20 percent discount on recovery of servers, RAIDs, Storage Area Networks (SANs), VMware and tape media affected by storm damage.
Kroll Ontrack’s data recovery cleanroom in Singapore is the only data recovery company in South East Asia to offer a full suite of recovery solutions, enabling recovery anywhere, anytime from virtually any operating system, storage or media type and cause of data loss. The organisation has a shipping department and houses a spare parts inventory warehouse, further ensuring a rapid turnaround in jobs and enhanced customer care.
