Data recovery is a technically meticulous process. Cleanliness in the clean room where data recovery occurs is vital. Only 3 nano-meters separates the hard drive disk (HDD) from the actuator arm and read/write heads, which may be persistently buffeted by a wind created when the disk, or platter spins as fast as 7200 RPM.
A tiny particle, even a microscopic particle between the detection device and the platter could cause minor or catastrophic data loss.
Particles can even damage the sensitive equipment.
Outdoor air can contain as many as 35 million particles of dust, ash or other contaminants per cubic foot. Although indoor air is often better filtered, it can still support one million particles greater in size than .5 microns, or 0.000039 inches. Such a polluted environment can make it impossible to open and work with sensitive equipment and threaten recovery of fragile data imprinted on the platter. As microscopic airborne contaminates settle on the equipment or are forced through the device by wind, they interfere with the ability of detectors to adequately read and write information. This results in a poor quality and inaccurate data recovery or hard drive recovery process.
By definition, a successful clean room must be a haven from these dangers. Accurate data recovery and hard drive recovery requires an environment containing as few as 100 particles per cubic foot. Particle contamination in a truly clean environment can have many sources. Clothing, shoes and extraneous materials such as paper or tools can introduce pollution. Each of those particles is capable of preventing information from being detected, inevitably leading to data loss. Particles can even damage the detection equipment. This can cause ongoing loss of data throughout the process and reduce or eliminate the possibility of full recovery. Although a microscopic contaminate as thin as a human fingerprint may not be visible to the human eye, it can have catastrophic consequences in a clean room and permanently undermine data and hard drive recovery.
