Power Surge Data Loss

If you suffer a significant power surge, and your computer loses power in the middle of working on a project, you can almost be assured of some data loss. Data can be inaccessible or severely corrupted as a result of a power outage. Even when utilizing a decent surge protector, that doesn't necessarily guarantee protection for your data. We have even had cases come in where a server was on a UPS, but there was a slight delay in the switch-over and the file system was heavily damaged as a result.

When this file system damage occurs, we typically have to approach the recovery process as we would any other type of logical recovery. We start by putting the drive in a write-protect mode and we then clone or create an image file of the drive. Once this has been completed, we can then move on to repairing and reconstructing the file system. In most In cases where the file system is so heavily damaged that it cannot be repaired, then we may have to "carve" the data.

It's not uncommon for a power surge to physically damage the hard drive, specifically the PCB (printed circuit board), or in some cases the heads (more specifically the preamp). In cases where the pcb is damaged we first need to make repairs to the pcb before we can complete the imaging process. Simply switching out the damaged pcb for a new one only works with certain drives. In most instances we will need to either repair the damaged board, or transplant vital components over to the new board. This is necessary because the pcb in many drives contains chips which store unique adaptives for that particular hard drive and cannot be swapped over from one drive to another.

If you have lost data due to a power surge, please contact us at 1-800-717-8974.