If the hard drive was only in water for a short time, you may find the water was not able to get inside your hard drive. If the water makes its way into your drive, it is important that you get it to the recovery service immediately.
You need to keep the drive wet, do not allow it to dry it out until it is in the hands of an expert. You must allow the drive to drive properly or more damage could occur. Also, floodwater may contain dirt and other impurities which may pile up inside the drive once drying has started. This buildup may prevent data recovery.
After a flood or fire, you should never try to run the computer without having a technician check it first. If you run any power to a damaged drive, it could result in a total loss of data with no chance of recovery. Your only choice is getting the drive to a recovery service, in its present condition, as fast as you can. The longer you wait, the less chance you have for recovery.
Ship the drive to a competent recovery service who has experience in restoring data from damaged or destroyed equipment. While there are standard procedures used in recovering data, your chances get slimmer with destroyed or damaged equipment. So it is important to find a service who has above average technicians and know-how.
If you select an inexperienced recovery service, you might find that you lose data instead of salvaging it. Since errors are so critical to the recovery, one mistake can sink the chances of a successful recovery.
You can usually depend on your insurance carrier to pay the bills that you run up when trying to recover your data. After all, they would calculate this is much cheaper than paying for loss of income coverage.
