With the dawn of information technology, people had been constantly relying on their electronic media, such as computers, hard drives, and compact discs for storage of their most important files. I myself keep most of my important documents inside my computer's hard disk. But since I am living in a flood-prone area, I usually wonder what would happen if ever my hard disk becomes damaged with water. Sure, I have flood insurance, but that does not mean I will be able to recover all my lost documents. This puts me in a state of paranoia, which is why I decided to come up with a list on how to employ water damage restoration procedures for my electronic media, the repositories of my most essential documents.



It is very important to note that in water damage restoration of electronic media, time plays a huge factor. The faster you treat the damaged medium, the greater its chances of being salvaged. Usually, immediate water damage restoration equates to 72 to 96 hours after water damage.

But then, you cannot restore these media alone. More often than not, you will need the help of professional to restore these items back to their original state. For me, shelling out a few bucks for these professionals is nothing compared to the amount of suffering I will have to endure without my important personal and office files. So I suggest hiring a professional as the easiest way to restore your files.

It is a big no-no to dry your hard drives using heat. This actually applies to all other electronic media. The most you can do is bring it to a water damage restoration professional and let him do the work for you. Also, never attempt to use these water-damaged hard drives without being examined first. You might do more damage to your hard drive, thus lessening, or even erasing, your chances of recovering important documents.

For water damage restoration of your floppy disks, a special cleaning solvent may be used. Afterwards, you should remove the damaged diskette from its jacket, wash it with clean water, and dry with clean towels. Once done, you can use a different jacket for your diskette so that the files can be copied to another diskette.

Compact disks can also undergo water damage restoration. The most important thing about water damage restoration in compact disks is to avoid scratching its surface. Therefore, it is very important to protect the surface of a compact disk as this can cause data error. Do not attempt to clean your compact disks yourself; keep them wet until a licensed water damage restoration professional can clean them.

Lastly, one very important thing to remember in restoring water-damaged microfilms and x-ray films is that they must be kept wet so as to prevent the gelatin coating of the films from sticking to other layers, thus tearing the document information from the film. To prevent drying of the film, you must store it in five gallons of water to completely cover the film. If you think that it will take longer before water damage restoration professionals are able to recover your microfilms, you can opt to freeze them as a form of storage.

Water damage to electronic media is not so bad after all, as most of the data can be recovered anyway. Just remember, during times like these, speed is of the essence.