Everything instinct says about a soaked drive is backwards. Water on platters is a suspended problem; it becomes a permanent one as it dries, depositing minerals and feeding corrosion exactly where heads need to fly. The radiator, the airing cupboard, the bag of rice — each converts a recoverable accident into etched surfaces. The rule that saves flood drives fits on a label: keep it wet, keep it sealed, keep it cold-ish.
Do not power it — not to test, not for a second; electricity through a damp board is the one instant killer here. Do not dry it, rinse it, or open it for a look. Seal the drive in a zip-lock bag with a damp (clean-water) cloth so nothing dries in transit, keep it cool, and get it moving to the bench — days matter with corrosion, hours don’t. Burst pipes, Clyde-side floods, washing-machine incidents: the protocol is identical.
At the bench the drive is cleaned and stabilised properly — contamination lifted from platters under a laminar-flow hood, electronics treated or substituted — and then imaged once, gently, like any mechanical patient.
Fire-damaged drives survive more often than their appearance suggests, because the case and electronics absorb the event: plastics melt and boards char while platters — metal or glass, rated far beyond house-fire ambient temperatures in many zones of a room — frequently remain readable. The real enemies are soot and extinguisher residue, both conductive, both corrosive, both a laminar-flow cleaning job before any power is considered.
Send fire drives exactly as found — melted externals, warped caddies and all. Do not chip away debris or test “the ones that look okay”; looking okay after a fire means nothing until the inside is inspected.
Flood and fire jobs usually travel with an insurance claim, so the paperwork is part of the service: written condition reports on arrival, photographs before and after cleaning, and an itemised account of the recovery for the loss adjuster. Recovering the data and evidencing the loss are the same careful process documented twice.
A single affected drive is a fixed £300 + VAT, whatever the fault turns out to be; the rare chip-level exception is quoted in writing first. Everything starts with a free diagnostic, the figure goes in writing before work begins, and on most jobs nothing is owed unless the data comes back. No hourly meter, no evaluation fee, no percentage of what the files are worth.
Not too late — but the clock is now real. Dried contamination and early corrosion make the cleaning stage harder, not impossible; prospects remain genuinely good, they simply erode week by week. Stop any temptation to power-test it, seal it as it is, and send it now rather than after the insurance paperwork settles.
Please don’t — drive breathers admit moisture even when cases shrug it off, and one power-up through a damp board or contaminated platters can end an otherwise routine recovery. “Looks fine” after immersion is unverifiable from outside. One inspection under the hood settles it safely, and the look is free.
Yes — melted externals are a known genre, and the mess is usually cosmetic armour around a readable disk. We free the drive from the enclosure properly, clean soot and residue under the hood, and image what the platters held. Send it exactly as recovered from the scene, untouched.
Yes — condition on arrival, photographic evidence, work performed and outcome, itemised for the claim. Adjusters see our reports routinely. If the insurer needs particular wording or a call, that’s part of the job, not an extra.
Two honest routes, no vans. Hand the device in at Tay House, 300 Bath Street — right at Charing Cross, two minutes off the M8 — Monday to Friday, 9am–5:30pm. Or wrap it well and send it by insured, tracked post from anywhere in the UK. The work is done in-house by our own engineers, with a documented chain of custody, and your data never leaves the UK.
Wet and sealed beats dried and tested, every single time. Water and fire damage recovery for Glasgow — stabilised under the hood, imaged once, documented for the insurer. Charing Cross drop-off or sealed insured post.