Rescuing Digital Data from Submerged HDD

As the increasing number of personal computers is involved in various criminal cases, the importance of the capability of extracting crucial digital data from these electromagnetic devices is getting emphasized. There are criminal cases where digital devices happen to be found in mud, water, and fire. Because digital devices have the possibility of storing essential key information that might contribute to the solution of particular criminal cases, it is usually required to retrieve data contained in the electromagnetic storage installed in personal computers by any means however damaged they may appear to be. This study reports one of the best practices of our successful experimental result on the extraction of digital data from damaged hard disk drive. This result is expected to help digital forensic practitioners deal effectively with similar cases in difficult situations.