winter data loss.

Are you used to turning your office heat off in order to lower utility bills on a weekend?

Have you ever left your laptop or iPod in the car on a cold winter day?

Did you drop your phone in the snow while capturing the idyllic winter scenes?

winter data loss threats.

cold.

Sensitive electronics need protection from extreme weather. Leaving them in cold weather conditions can severely damage them. This can cause data to become innecassible or even permanently lost. 

• risk to smartphones cold exposure

Winter colds can reduce battery performance and damage your device’s components. Operating guidelines may vary from one manufacturer to another. However, most smartphones have operating ambient temperatures between 32° and 95° Fahrenheit. Their non-operating temperatures are below -4° and above  113° Fahrenheit. There's a small gap between these temperature ranges where your smartphone will continue to operate, but not at its best.

In addition to reducing battery performance, extremely cold temperatures can cause the device to modify its own ability to regulate temperature. Exposure to frigid temperatures will slow down the battery’s electric currents that in turn speeds up the rate at which it releases its charge. 

The best way to protect your phone from long-term damage is to turn it off, especially if you plan to be in extreme temperatures for an extended period of time.

If you really have to take your phone out in the cold, keep it in your pocket rather than in your bag. A bag offers some protection, but keeping your phone against your body allows your body heat to keep it from reaching critically low temperatures.

If you notice that your phone gets wet or experiences condensation due to the cold, turn it off and dry it completely before you turn it back on.

• risks to HDD cold exposure

Most hard drive manufacturers specify a normal operating temperature between 40° and 140° Fahrenheit. While it may seem that the drive can function in temperatures below or above the suggested range, doing so can degrade the quality of the HDD. 

If a laptop or computer was left in a very cold environment, it should sit in a room temperature environment for at least four hours before operation. This allows the computer’s hard drive to adjust to the new temperature, preventing any issues. 

The most basic component of the HDD that can be affected is its ability to boot up. Most liquids will freeze if they are in cold enough temperatures. The lubricant that enables your platters to spin may freeze, preventing the read/write heads from reading your data. If the platters do spin, the cold can slow down their spinning speeds, which can corrupt the data when the heads attempt to locate the information. 

Another possible risk is condensation. When you take your external hard drive or laptop out into the frosty environment, your destination is most likely a warm place indoors. The drastic change from extreme cold to warm can cause condensation to form in your drive. And water damage puts your drive at risk for data loss. Best thing you could do in this situation is to slowly acclimate your drive to the heat by keeping it in the box or bag it was transported in and gradually introduce it to room temperature.

You can monitor the health of your drive, including the temperature, using special software that diagnoses and reports vital information about your machine. 

However, it is much easier and cheaper to be cautious and only take your device out in the cold if it is absolutely necessary and let it adjust to room temperature before powering it on.

snow.

In addition to the cold, winter usually brings snow. Wherever we go, we always take our phones with us to capture the precious moments we experience. But, as we all know well, accidents happen when we least expect them to.

Eventually, snow turns into water. Being aware of this, it is well worth investing in a water-resistant case to protect your phone from water damage.

• what to do if you drop your phone or any other electronic device in the snow:

a. Turn it off.

If you drop your smartphone in the snow when turned on, it’s more susceptible to damage, but it is worth the risk to turn it off. If your phone is off when it’s submerged, do not turn it back on. Take it indoors immediately and remove the battery to prevent a short circuit, which can lead to hardware damage and data loss. Never remove the battery while you’re still outdoors as you risk freezing any water that may have seeped into the battery compartment. Always dry your device before trying to restore power.

b. Remove SIM card.

If your device uses a SIM card, remove it to save your stored information such as contacts, emails, texts, apps, pictures, videos. Modern SIMs are usually not used as a memory bank anymore since phones come with plenty of memory, and lots of storage is now cloud-based.  

c. Dry the Outside of your Phone.

Do your best to dry the surface of the device. Gently shake your phone to remove water and moisture. Use a clean microfiber cloth or paper towel and gently dry all surfaces: the screen, keyboard, and ports. If your phone was protected by a case, remove it to prevent the risk of trapped moisture. 

Don’t use the sun’s rays to dry a wet phone. In just a few minutes of direct sun contact, the internal temperature of phones can rise above 150 degrees, causing irreversible damage to internal components. 

d. Dry the Inside of your Phone.

Place your phone in an airtight container with packets of silica gel to absorb moisture. If you have no silica gel packets handy, fill a bowl with uncooked rice and bury the device in the rice. This will draw out moisture. Leave the phone to dry for at least 48 hours. Two days without your phone can be painful but it could save your data and prevent the need for a new phone. 

Do not use a hairdryer, an oven, or a microwave to speed up the process. This can cause more damage to your phone than the original water itself. In general, avoid any form of heat near a wet electronic device. 

static electricity.

A lesser known side effect of cold air is static electricity. 

During dry winters, static electricity can build up and static discharges can instantly damage electronics.

When the air is dry and people wear several warm layers, static easily passes between people and objects. Static damage to a drive occurs when a charge finds a path to ground itself. To prevent your drive from being the grounding platform, try to ground yourself by touching a metal object to remove the charge from your body before handling your drive.

how to prevent data loss due to cold winter weather conditions.

Plan ahead, take precautions to avoid exposure to extreme cold temperatures and keep your devices dry and away from static electricity. 

But most importantly, back up your data regularly. A regular backup plan can prevent permanent data loss.

If your important data has been lost due to severe weather conditions, a professional data recovery service is probably your last resort. 

Kotar Data Recovery has the equipment, expertise and experience to deal with all types of data loss due to environmental damages.