Importance of Clean Rooms For Data Recovery Service

The data stored in peoples computers is most often the sum total of all their personal and official records. It will be conglomeration of years of hard work, or representations of a host of cherished memories. People get real panicky when this happens. The main reason for the presence of data recovery service everywhere is the indispensability of such services when such an eventuality occurs.

Some people manage limited data recovery on their own. One way of doing this is removing the failed hard disk and hooking it up to another computer as a slave drive. If the damage is limited the drive will show up on the new computer and data can be instantly recovered. If it does not show up, the damage is obviously of a more serious nature. The user may then require the help of a recovery service. Alternatively they can also hire the services of an on-site data recovery expert to get the problem solved.

Many computer experts advise computer users not to attempt data recovery on their own. One of the reasons for this warning is that when people with limited technical know how attempt such things there is the possibility of their causing further damage to the disk and thus reducing the possibilities of retrieving data. Another reason is that computer owners are not likely to have the clean room facilities that a recovery service will have.

A hard drive is a very delicate instrument, which should ideally not be opened, in a polluted environment. This is all the more important when the disk is damaged. The platters, on the surface of which data is stored magnetically in the hard drive, are extremely sensitive objects. If the drive is opened even in a mildly contaminated environment, these platters can get polluted since even a speck of dust is enough to spoil it, and make recovery difficult. So every recovery service center will have a specially designed clean room where the drive is handled.

All data recovery service providers must have access to a clean room whether they are doing the work in their service center or providing the service as on-site data recovery expert. These clean room specifications are controlled by Federal Standard STD-209E. This is a standard for measuring airborne particles and their level of purity. The rooms are cleaned by air filters to eliminate every speck of dust and a clean room with class-100 specification is one where there will be less than hundred microscopic pollutants in an area of one square foot. It is inside such rooms that the hard disk is opened for recovery.

Besides working in a clean room, the technicians at a data recovery center will also wear special masks and gloves to eliminate the possibilities of contamination. Some centers also use clean flow desks, which are also purified using air filters. An on-site data recovery expert may not have all these facility to work with. However, where the damage to the hard disk is not much and data can be retrieved by slaving the disk to another machine, recovery may be done on site.