Waterlogged Computers get Second Chance

San Antonio, Texas, Oct 21 -- San Antonio data recovery experts, Southwest Stars Corporation, came to the rescue when the lights went out for Hardy Manufacturing this weekend. When the San Antonio River burst its banks and twelve feet of water poured into the premises its computers and servers on the ground floor were completely submerged - as well as all paper records.

Hardy's back-up tapes were stored in a fire safe which was not waterproof. Ben Richardson, IT manager, said, "We were particularly keen to recover software that we had developed ourselves."

Richardson knew that special companies existed that might be able to salvage something from the disaster. He searched the web from his home PC for a company to recover what data it could from the damaged equipment. "Southwest Stars looked to be the market leaders," he said, "with impressive credentials in working for the individuals and leading companies," so he phoned them to discuss the problem. Southwest Stars said that they would look at the equipment to see what they could salvage, although after 24 hours in filthy water, the prospects were not good.

Southwest Stars has dedicated laboratories in Texas to deal with data recovery, whatever the source of the loss, and is able to respond quickly to requests for help in dealing with flood-damaged computer systems. "We can rebuild the system and retrieve the data," explained Richard Morehouse, data recovery manager for Southwest Stars. "This involves carefully cleaning the computer storage media before using dedicated hardware, software and data recovery techniques to access the media and read the information."

The damage done to computers by flood water is comprehensive and, potentially, terminal. Computer systems are designed to operate in dry, stable environments and flooding is neither dry nor stable. In addition, flood water is never clean and quickly deposits contaminants on and within the disks or tapes. Furthermore, if computer drives or storage media are left immersed for any length of time, the contaminated water will corrode the assemblies and chemicals and minerals present will also attack the metals.

Southwest Stars was able to recover the critical data and software, although some other data was irretrievably lost. "Losing e-mail archives was inconvenient, but if we had lost the software we had developed it would have had serious implications for the company," he said. "We would have had to try to recreate it from people's heads, so we were delighted that Southwest Stars was able to help."

Richardson was impressed with the service. "Southwest Stars called me as soon as the drives arrived," he said, "and kept me informed throughout the recovery process. Whenever I phoned, the person at the other end knew exactly what they were dealing with. The company was very professional."

Although the town of San Antonio had been caught unawares by the flooding, Hardy is taking no chances of a recurrence. "We have moved to new premises on high ground," Richardson said. So the lights should not go out again at our plant, but if they do, the data will be well protected and above water level.