Salt Water, Fresh Water, & Flood Damage Specialists
Do not plug it in. Water and electricity destroy data. Whether your device was dropped in a pool, submerged in a flood, or spilled on with coffee, corrosion begins immediately. We use ultrasonic cleaning and board-level microsoldering to stabilize your device and recover your data.
1.DO NOT power it on. This causes short circuits that burn traces and destroy chips.
2.DO NOT use rice. Rice does not clean corrosion. It creates a humid “sauna” that accelerates rust.
3.DO NOT dry it with heat. Hair dryers can warp sensitive components.
4.DO ship it immediately. Corrosion is a chemical reaction that gets worse every hour.
How to Ship a Wet Hard Drive
Do not dry the drive. This is counter-intuitive, but letting floodwater evaporate exposes internal components to oxygen, causing rapid oxidation. Dissolved salts and silt crystallize directly onto the magnetic platters as moisture leaves, permanently destroying the data layer.
1Wrap the drive in a slightly damp paper towel. This keeps oxygen away from internal surfaces.
2Place it inside an anti-static bag or ziplock bag. Squeeze out all air before sealing.
3Pack the sealed bag inside a padded box with bubble wrap on all sides.
4Ship overnight to our Austin, TX lab. Use our mail-in form to safely package & mail your drive.
Every hour of delay gives corrosion more time to spread. For hard drive recovery after water exposure, the single most important variable is how quickly the drive reaches our ultrasonic cleaning bath.
“HIGHLIGHT & CONCLUSION
******Overall I'm having a good experience with this store because they have great customer services, best third party replacement parts, justify price for those replacement parts, short estimate waiting time to fix the device, 1 year warranty, and good prediction of pricing and the device life conditions whether it can fix it or not.*******
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“What can I say other than cheers...your are an oasis in a desert of planned obsolescence!
Some water damage had my MacBook Air acting up...smc non resettable, fans running constantly, then my keyboard bugged out with nonsense coming from all of its keys...
Genius Bar quoted me a repair requiring an entire logic board replacement...was my 2015 Air even worth that cost anymore?”
“Sent Rossmann Repair a 5 year old MacBook Air that had water spilled on it and would not boot up. The Apple Genius Bar had stated that with the damage from the liquid it was not worth repairing (too costly / no guarantee it would continue to work).
Within a few days I received a notification from Rossmann that it had been fixed and I only owed $25 for return shipping.”
“Had an amazing experience working with Rossman Repair Group. Spilled a cup of coffee on my 2020 MacbookPro, and even though it worked for a few minutes after the incident it soon died. I thought I would go on Youtube and see if I could find out how to open up my device and clean it, and managed to find my way to Mr Rossman's videos.”
We remove the PCB (circuit board) and clean it in a crest ultrasonic cleaner with specialized electronics-grade solution to remove mineral deposits and corrosion from underneath chips.
2. Microsoldering Repair
Corroded resistors, capacitors, and ICs are replaced. Broken traces are jumpered under a microscope. We restore the electrical integrity of the drive's control board.
3. HDA Inspection
For hard drives, we check if water breached the seal. If the platters are dry, we proceed with PC-3000 imaging. If wet, we use specialized drying techniques to prevent stiction before spinning up.
Platter Decontamination & Pre-Amplifier Repair
When floodwater forces past a hard drive's breather filter, it compromises two critical components: the read/write head pre-amplifier chip and the nanometer-scale platter lubrication layer. Mud, dissolved minerals, and salt crystallize on the platter surface as moisture evaporates, making head landings impossible without immediate physical intervention.
We extract the platter stack on our 0.02 micron ULPA-filtered clean bench and remove caked residue using specialized platter cleaning techniques. After decontamination, we inspect the pre-amplifier chip under a microscope. If the pre-amp is corroded, we perform a full head swap with matched donor heads ($1,200–$1,500 + donor cost).
A simple PCB swap does not work on water-damaged drives. The original PCB stores adaptive ROM parameters (head calibration data unique to that specific drive). We extract and transfer these parameters to the donor PCB using PC-3000's terminal interface before the replacement board can communicate with the drive's heads and platters.
Data Recovery Standards & Verification
Our Austin lab operates on a transparency-first model. We use industry-standard recovery tools, including PC-3000 and DeepSpar, combined with strict environmental controls to make sure your hard drive is handled safely and properly. This approach allows us to serve clients nationwide with consistent technical standards.
Serving clients nationwide via mail-in service since 2008. Our lead engineer holds PC-3000 and HEX Akademia certifications for hard drive firmware repair and mechanical recovery.
Our "No Data, No Charge" policy means we assume the risk of the recovery attempt, not the client.
LR
Technical Oversight
Louis Rossmann
Louis Rossmann's well trained staff review our lab protocols to ensure technical accuracy and honest service. Since 2008, his focus has been on clear technical communication and accurate diagnostics rather than sales-driven explanations.
We believe in proving standards rather than just stating them. We use TSI P-Trak instrumentation to verify that clean-air benchmarks are met before any drive is opened.
Flood water often contains sewage, oil, and salt. Salt water is highly conductive and corrosive. These are critical emergencies requiring immediate attention.
Salt Water Warning: Corrosion can destroy traces in hours. Send immediately.
Spills (Coffee, Soda, Wine)
Sugar and acids in drinks eat through copper traces and solder joints. As the liquid dries, it leaves a conductive residue that causes short circuits when powered on.
Sugar Warning: Sticky residue can seize hard drive motors.
Water Damage & SSDs: Removable vs. Soldered
PC Laptop NVMe SSD (M.2)
In most PC laptops, the NVMe SSD is a separate M.2 module. If you act fast, remove it, and do not plug it in while wet, the data often survives. The SSD itself was not part of the shorted circuit; only the surrounding board was.
MacBook SSD (Soldered, 2016+)
In MacBooks from 2016 onward, the SSD is soldered directly to the logic board. Water damage to the board means the NAND storage is part of the shorted circuit. Recovery requires repairing the logic board to restore power to the NAND chips before any data extraction is possible.
Liquid-Induced SSD Firmware Corruption
Liquid damage on an SSD doesn't just short the physical pathways. The resulting power anomaly frequently corrupts the controller's Flash Translation Layer (FTL), the firmware map that tracks which physical NAND cells hold which logical data blocks. Without a functioning FTL, the drive appears as 0 bytes or enumerates with a generic device name instead of its model number.
SATA SSD controllers are particularly susceptible. A voltage spike from liquid contact forces Phison S11 (PS3111) controllers into a firmware panic state where the drive reports as "SATAFIRM S11" with zero capacity. NVMe controllers like the Phison E12 react differently, dropping off the PCIe bus entirely or reporting a generic ROM identifier instead of their model string.
Recovery requires two steps: first, replacing the shorted power management ICs via Hakko FM-2032 microsoldering to restore stable voltage to the controller. Second, using PC-3000 SSD in Technological Mode to access the controller directly, rebuild the corrupted translator tables, and extract raw NAND pages. For SSD recovery involving liquid damage, firmware repair starts at $600–$900.
Water Damage Recovery Questions
Someone told me to put my drive in rice. Did I make it worse?
Rice does not clean corrosion. It absorbs surface moisture while creating a humid environment that accelerates rust on PCB traces and connector pins. Time spent in rice is time corrosion keeps spreading. The real damage is microscopic corrosion under BGA chips and metal shields that rice cannot reach. Send the drive for ultrasonic cleaning as soon as possible.
My drive fell into salt water. Is that recoverable?
Often, yes, but salt water is the worst-case liquid exposure. Salt is highly conductive and causes rapid, aggressive corrosion that can destroy PCB traces in hours. Send the drive immediately without powering it on. The faster we get it into an ultrasonic cleaning bath, the better the recovery odds.
How does ultrasonic cleaning remove water damage from a PCB?
We remove the PCB from the drive and submerge it in an ultrasonic cleaner with electronics-grade solution. High-frequency sound waves create microscopic cavitation bubbles that dislodge mineral deposits and corrosion from underneath BGA chips and inside connector pins where a brush or cloth cannot reach. After cleaning, we inspect under a microscope and replace any damaged components via microsoldering.
Water got inside the hard drive itself. Is recovery possible?
It depends on how long the drive was submerged and whether it was powered on while wet. If the platters are dry or only briefly exposed, we use specialized drying techniques to prevent stiction (heads sticking to the platters) before spinning up. If the heads or platters show corrosion, we may need a head swap on our clean bench before imaging with PC-3000.
I powered it on after it got wet. Did I ruin my chances?
Powering on a wet device causes short circuits that burn PCB traces and destroy chips. It makes recovery harder and more expensive, but not always impossible. The extent of damage depends on how long it ran while wet and what components shorted. We can often repair the electrical damage through component-level microsoldering and PCB trace repair.
My MacBook got wet and the SSD is soldered. Can you still get my data?
Yes, but it requires repairing the logic board first. In MacBooks from 2016 onward, the SSD NAND chips are soldered directly to the logic board. Water damage to the board means the storage is part of the affected circuit. We perform ultrasonic cleaning and component-level repair to restore power to the NAND, then extract the data.
Can you recover data from a water damaged iPhone?
Yes. iPhone data recovery after water damage requires board-level micro-soldering to repair corroded circuits on the logic board. The storage (NAND) is soldered to the board, so we must restore power to the board before extracting any data. We perform ultrasonic cleaning to remove mineral deposits from under BGA chips, then replace damaged power management ICs, capacitors, and trace jumpers under a microscope. iPhone water damage recovery costs $300–$450 to $650 depending on the model and extent of corrosion. The faster you send it (without powering it on), the better the recovery odds.
Is water damage worse for phones or hard drives?
Both are vulnerable, but the failure modes differ. A hard drive's PCB corrodes and the internal platters can develop stiction if moisture enters the sealed chamber. An iPhone's logic board has hundreds of microscopic solder joints under BGA chips where water wicks in and corrodes traces within hours. Hard drives can often be saved if the platters stayed dry. iPhones require component-level board repair regardless of where the water entered.
My SSD was encrypted with BitLocker and the controller burned out from water. Is the data lost?
If the liquid damage is isolated to power management ICs or capacitors, we can repair those components via microsoldering to bring the drive back online with BitLocker decryption intact. The data reads out normally through the original controller. If the water surge destroyed the controller chip itself, raw NAND chip-off extraction is cryptographically useless; the hardware decryption key dies with the controller. We focus microsoldering efforts on keeping the original controller alive. SSD circuit board repair starts at $450–$600.
