A drive that's been through a flood, a spill or a fire looks like a write-off — but the platters that hold your data are often intact under the damage. Water corrodes, and fire scorches, the outside long before they reach the recording surface. The rules are simple: don't power it on, don't try to dry it out, and get it to us, where we clean, stabilise and read it in-house.
$ bdr diagnose /dev/sda → Device: WD Elements (4 TB, USB) → Status: WATER DAMAGE — corrosion on board & contacts → Client: confidential · Belfast $ bdr engineer-working → Decontamination: platters & internals cleaned → Donor board matched: from stock · 0 days wait → Imaging: 3.52 TB / 4.00 TB (88%) $ bdr verify → ✓ family_photos — 88,140 files → ✓ documents — 9,620 files → ✓ everything recoverable — saved
A wet or fire-damaged drive must not be powered on — water shorts the electronics, and running the drive spreads corrosion and contamination across the platters. Don't try to dry it with a hairdryer, an oven or a bag of rice either; heat warps the platters and forces debris into the mechanism. If it's wet, seal it in a bag to stop it drying out, and get it to us quickly.
Water and fire rarely destroy the data itself — they damage everything around it. Here's what actually happens inside, and why the platters so often survive.
We recover water and fire damaged drives from every major make — internal, external, and the drives inside laptops and PCs.
3.5″ and 2.5″ hard drives · external and portable drives · the drives inside laptops, PCs and Macs · and NAS and server disks.
A water or fire damaged drive is cleaned and stabilised before it's ever read. We open it in clean-air conditions, clean the platters and internals, replace what corrosion or heat has ruined, and image the disk read-only.
We open the drive in clean-air conditions, assess the corrosion, contamination or heat damage, and check whether the platters are flat and readable, then quote in writing.
The platters and internals are carefully cleaned of water, silt or soot and properly dried — the step that makes everything after it possible.
Corroded heads are swapped for a matched donor set, and a shorted or scorched board is repaired or replaced, all in clean-air conditions.
Once stable, the drive is imaged read-only and sector by sector, reading gently to protect fragile heads and any marked areas.
We reconstruct the files and folders from the image, so your data comes back organised and usable.
Recovered files are checked to confirm they open and are intact before anything is returned to you.
Your files come back on fresh media, or via our free download service for up to 75GB.
From flooded and spilled-on drives to fire and smoke damage, we recover disks that look beyond saving — cleaning and stabilising the drive first, then reading it from a read-only image, never your original under stress.
Give us the short version of what the drive is doing and we’ll reply fast — typically within half an hour during office hours.
We will get back to you soon. If it is urgent, call 028 9002 0144.
Diagnosis costs nothing, and nothing starts until you’ve approved a fixed quote in writing. Where physical work is involved we ask for half up front to cover donor parts and bench hours — the remainder is only due if your data comes back.
A representative selection of water and fire damaged drives we've recovered across different makes — device types and outcomes shown, customer details kept private.
Silt and corrosion coated the internals, but the platters were flat and unmarked. We cleaned it, swapped the corroded heads, and imaged the drive in full.
The board had shorted but the drive was never powered on afterwards. We cleaned the contacts, fitted a repaired board, and recovered everything.
Soot had coated the internals and the casing was scorched, but the platters had stayed flat. After a careful clean and a head swap, most of the data came back.
Verified reviews from Belfast clients with flood, spill and fire jobs will appear here as we collect them — nothing invented, ever.
No invented reviews here. We're collecting verified, named reviews from our Belfast customers and will publish them here as they come in. In the meantime you're welcome to call and talk an issue through with an engineer on 028 9002 0144.
Post or drop in your device for a free diagnostic, with a note on what happened — an engineer reviews it and confirms your exact quote in writing before any work begins.
First step: get the device onto our Belfast bench. Wrap it well, tuck your contact details in the box, and post it over — the diagnostic costs nothing, and you’ll have a firm written price to approve before we touch a single sector.
Posting it? A tracked, insured service is best. Dropping it off instead? You’re welcome Monday–Friday, 9am–5:30pm — please still pack the device as above.
Not ready to send anything yet? Use the form to describe the fault in your own words and one of the engineers will come back with a quote tailored to your situation.
We will get back to you soon. If it is urgent, call 028 9002 0144.
The questions we're asked most about water and fire damaged drives.
Often, yes. Water rarely destroys the platters themselves; the damage is corrosion on the heads, contacts and board, and contamination inside. As long as the drive wasn't powered on wet, we can usually clean it, replace what corroded, and read the platters.
No to both. Heat — a hairdryer or oven — can warp the platters and bake in contamination, and rice adds fine debris and doesn't reach the sealed internals. If the drive is wet, seal it in a bag to stop it drying out and corroding further, and get it to us quickly.
Because water shorts the electronics, and spinning a contaminated drive drags soot or silt across the platters and grinds the heads. One power-up can turn a recoverable drive into a lost one. Keep it switched off and have it cleaned professionally first.
It depends on the heat. If the platters stayed flat and the damage is soot, scorching and a ruined board, recovery is usually possible after a careful clean. If the platters warped in extreme heat, the outlook is harder — the diagnostic will tell you honestly.
Recovery on a single drive costs £300 + VAT. The diagnostic is free, most jobs run no fix, no fee, and because physical repairs consume donor parts and bench hours we take a 50% deposit — you only pay the rest when your data is back. Everything is confirmed in writing before work starts.
Bring it to Cromac Square (weekdays 9am–5:30pm) or post it insured — and if the drive is wet, bag and seal it first: staying damp beats corroding as it dries out. Pop your name, address, phone and email inside and we’ll log it, diagnose it free and send a written quote.
Under the soot or the water damage, the platters in most flooded and burnt drives survive. Resist the urge to power up or dry it out — bag it as-is and get it to us for cleaning, stabilisation and recovery. Free diagnostic; no fix, no fee on most jobs.