All of my servers are currently flooded by salt water. Is it possible for each platter in a multi-platter drive to be separated, cleaned, imaged, and merged into a new virtual drive for data recovery?
All of my servers are currently flooded by salt water. Is it possible for each platter in a multi-platter drive to be separated, cleaned, imaged, and merged into a new virtual drive for data recovery?
I almost cringe to do this, but if you're serious about recovering your data, and you don't have backups, you'll need a higher-end data recovery service.
Watch out for fly-by-nights shops that will be peddling/scamming in your area, and go with an actual top-tier data recovery service. (And be prepared to pay $$$$ for it.)
Here's a list of what to look at:
Your data.
Recovery company's history.
Recovery company's clientele
Recovery company's facilities
And I don't generally do this, but since the other answer has a link I'd be a little wary of, I'll throw out a recommendation of sorts. These guys are good, (expensive as hell, but good), and if you decide to go down this route you should look at them, if only for nothing more than to compare other data recovery services against.
EDIT: And as mentioned in the comments by @Grant, DO NOT take it to a lower-quality data recovery service first, because both the data recovery process itself and the passage of time will do [additional] irreversible damage to your drives. If you decide later to try someone better or more qualified, your earlier decision will have increased the cost and decreased the results.
There are already many companies providing services for this, for example 24HourData (their site has a list of drives they support).
While you figure out your next steps keep these things in mind
(from Top Tips for Liquid Damaged Data Storage Devices)
Highlights in these points are mine.
I know @HopelessN00b already mentioned this, and I'm not affiliated with them, but try this: Kroll Ontrack
From what I can tell, they handle some of the most difficult data recovery cases, including server, RAID, and forensic data recovery. Given that this is one of the leading data recovery companies, expect to pay dearly for their services. More information on their server data recovery services can be found here.
A cheap data recovery service is not the way to go. Data recovery is inherently a expensive and labor-intensive service, requiring state-of-the-art cleanrooms, highly specialized tools, and extensive experience. Even Ontrack itself says:
To answer your question, yes, it should be able to recover data and store it into a working drive(s). This is what Kroll Ontrack does.
As you would have read in other articles, the answer to this question is "yes". What you would not have read yet is that it is not an unconditional "yes". Data recovery companies would do what is called a "best-effort recovery" - i.e. they will clean the platters and use specialized equipment to read your data off them, but there is absolutely no guarantee your data is still what it used to be - be prepared for losses. Also, be prepared for a massive bill, even if your data could only be partially recovered.
Hard disk drives are not hermetically sealed, they have a venting hole so pressure differences between inside and outside would not deform the drive's case. So salt water would be able intrude into the drive upon immersion. And as is widely known, salt water is going to cause massive corrosion. The magnetic material on the platters is typically protected by carbon overcoat, but it would be overly optimistic to believe that no data bits would be affected.