Are you confused about selecting the right data recovery service to recover lost data from your hard drive, solid state drive or RAID array? It’s important to look for a data recovery service that operates in a certified clean room environment if your hard drive has suffered physical damage.

When you open a hard drive case, it exposes the delicate platters to dust and other particles in the air. Particles such as dead skin can immediately stick to the platters, resulting in further corrupt files which can damage the drive even further. When sectors are damaged on a hard drive, it makes data recovery even more time consuming.

If you’ve suffered hard drive failure, do not open the hard drive to investigate. Instead, call a data recovery service with a certified clean room environment to recover your lost data.  

What Is a Clean Room?

A clean room environment (it need not be an entire room, just a portion, sometimes called a “clean bench,”) is a place where the presence of airborn particles is reduced through highly filtered air and best practices, which reduce the generation of new particles.

A clean room is a highly restricted area, where only essential personnel may enter. Proper procedures, such as donning clean room gowns and shoe coverings that contain no outside, unfiltered particles, are required.

Obviously, it’s imperative to open and close doors quickly when entering a leaving a clean room environment to avoid contamination. All employees who enter the clean room should receive proper training in clean room best practices.

In an ISO Class 5, or Class 100 clean room environment, there are fewer than 100 particles larger than 0.5 microns in each cubic foot of air space.

A clean room environment should also be temperature and humidity controlled to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, 50% humidity.

Can You Create Your Own Clean Room?

You may find tips and articles on the Internet to create your own clean room environment within a shoe box for do-it-yourself data recovery. Other D-I-Yers claim you can create a clean room environment by running the shower in your bathroom for 20 minutes to disperse and dissipate all dust and particles. Another blogger suggested creating a clean room environment in a plastic food storage container.

At 24 Hour Data, we recommend against these practices. Clean rooms require sophisticated HVAC and filtering systems, something most people can’t replicate at home.

To avoid risking further data loss, do not attempt to open a hard drive yourself to repair damaged or stuck platters. Call a data recovery service with a clean room to recover lost data from your hard drive the right way.