Following the horrible tornado that devastated Moore, Oklahoma, we’re expecting to see many hard disk drives, RAID arrays, solid state drives, and mobile devices that suffered shock damage arrive at at our Dallas facility requiring data recovery. 

Sadly, shock damage is one of the worst things that can happen to an electronic device, because, unlike deleted files or viruses, which cause logical damage to a storage device, shock damage requires physical data recovery and repair of the storage media.

Physical data recovery takes longer and costs more than logical data recovery, since the hard disk drive must be opened. This action must take place in a certified clean room environment. However, with expert data recovery specialists on the job, the odds of a successful data recovery operation are highly likely, and is always backed by our “no data, no charge” guarantee. 

Types of Shock Damage to Hard Disk Drives

When a hard disk drive suffers “shock” damage, we are not referring to electrical shock, but a physical force that can knock the pieces of the hard disk out of alignment and damage the delicate disks that store data. 

When a hard disk drive is subject to physical shock, as it may be if it’s dropped or tossed around, as it may be during a hurricane or a tornado, the magnetic head that typically reads data touches the disk. The arm holding the head may also touch the disk. Either of these parts can dent the disk, or actually take off small particles of the disk. A dented disk will show a bad sector in that area. If particles fly off the disk and on to other sectors of the disk, the entire disk may fail. 

What To Do If Your Hard Disk Is Damaged 

Repeatedly trying to boot up or read data from a hard disk drive that has suffered shock damage often causes even more damage, making it even more time-consuming and costly to recover the data. 

If you think your hard disk drive has suffered shock damage and you cannot boot your computer or read files, don’t delay. Contact 24 Hour Data immediately to improve the odds that our data recovery specialists will be able to help you. Our data recovery specialists are available 24/7, 365 days a year, to assist with your data recovery emergency.