It is quite natural that the video tapes and the microfiche may get damaged at the time of hurricane and severe flooding. Sometimes these may accidentally be exposed to water. However, you should not think that they are useless when they are exposed to water. You can retrieve the tapes with its contents by seeking the help of professional drying service personnel.
It is always good to keep the important video tapes and microfiche in a safer place. So that the natural disasters like hurricane or flood will not affect these tapes. Keep these on the tight cases or shelf. Sometimes it may be damaged by the untimely flood or hurricane. But the service of drying specialists will assist you to restore your data by effective drying techniques and methods.
Through several processes the professional drying service company can repair the original tapes. So it is important to get the service of a drying specialist. Otherwise your video tapes and microfiche would be damaged and covered by fungus and water. Drying specialist will help you to remove the fungus and water from the video tapes and microfiche by proper drying techniques.
Experts in this field have developed successful and effective recovery techniques. Damage can happen due to many factors such as hurricane, flood and so on. But the professionals will help to restore and recover your data. So through proper techniques and methods wet or damaged video tapes or microfiche can be restored.
Things you have to know
Before seeking the help of a drying specialist it is important to understand how these tapes are damaged and what steps should be taken when these get wet or damaged. Some of such things are given below.
- Don’t discard tapes and microfiche which are recovered from flood, because it can be restored through proper techniques.
- If the tapes are exposed to water for a short time, it would not be damaged.
- Larger tapes have the power to prevent damages than the smaller ones
- Older analog tapes too have the capacity to prevent damages
- Cases where we keep tapes will not protect them from flood
- Exposure to salt water or chlorinated water increases the intensity of damage.
- If the tapes are exposed to water for a long term, then there is no use of drying.
- Improper drying may deform the tapes.
- Partial drying will cause for the growth of fungus in the tapes.
Self-Made Restoration Tips
- You should not play the wet tapes unless it is recommended to use by the drying specialist. Playing of wet tapes will damage the tapes irreversibly. Sometimes it may be difficult for the experts to restore the wet tapes if you play that.
- When you see that your tapes are wet or exposed to water, immediately recover it from those places. Long term exposure to water will destroy the tapes.
- If the tapes are exposed to salt or chlorine water, recover it immediately without delay and rinse it with cool distilled water before sending it to a recovery specialist.
- Rinsing of the tapes should be performed by just pouring some cool water over the tapes to remove the contaminants caused by saltwater or chlorine water.
- Sometimes you may be forced to use the wet or damaged tapes before you were able to seek a proper drying service. In those cases, it is better to use the older machines.
- If you do not like to get the service of a drying specialist, you can do it by yourself. You can dry the tapes using dry air or cool environment.
Drying Procedures
- Video tapes and microfiche which are damaged or wet by flood or hurricane has to be treated properly with the help of drying specialists. Restoration specialists will assist you tremendously in the recovery attempts.
- Drying specialist removes the tapes to do recovery procedures or rinse if it required. Rinsing of tapes from reels requires much care and protection and it can be done only by a specialist.
- Freeze drying is another method used in the recovery process. In some cases it will harden the contaminants on the surface of the tape. But in most cases, this method is more advantageous.
- To remove the moisture completely from the tapes, the drying specialist may allow the dry air to pass directly to the tapes with proper methods. Thus the tapes would not get damaged or destroyed.
- In order to make it usable, the drying specialist will clean and check the tapes once these are dried. Through proper cleaning and testing, the tapes will be ready to use again.
Services Offered in Video Tape and Microfiche Drying
- Cleaning of whole components
- Vacuum dry process for wet and damaged video tapes
- Re-spooling service for recovering data in the video tapes
- Some offers duplication in case the original one is damaged thoroughly
- Complete drying service for damaged or wet microfiche
- Removal of contaminants from the surface of the microfiche
- Back up file conversion is offered in the case of damaged or destroyed microfiche
- Re-label and re-spooling services are also offered for damaged microfiche
Hiring the Right Company
Whenever you are looking for a video tapes and microfiche drying company, it is always a challenge to find the best company for this kind of service. In order to find out the right company, you can search online or look into your phone book under microfiche drying services.
Sometimes you may feel to do these services by yourself without the help of these service companies. But the advanced equipments they are using may not be in your hands. So it is always good to hire their service. Check out in their site whether they are using the effective and newer technologies and equipment for drying.
Once you decide to have the professional service from the company, make sure you are getting the better deal for their service. Look for companies who offer cost effective services with newer technologies. Cost effectives should be one of your top priorities whenever you are about the hire the professional service.
You can ask for quote or estimation of cost when you decide to hire the service. Look for quality service always. Whenever they are restoring the data from your video tapes or microfiche, make sure of the security features of your data. Select the company who gives more security for personal data and deliver the service at your reach.
Useful Tips
You have to take some preventive measures in order to avoid the damage of your video tapes and microfiche. It is always a risky one to recover data from the wet video tapes and microfiche. Sometimes you may loose the important data you stored on that. Once you found out that the video tapes or microfiche are exposed to water or damages, respond quickly to recover the whole data. Some of the tips are given below to protect your data in video tapes and micro fiche.
- Once the microfiche is wet, you should not make it dry until it is recommended by the drying specialists.
- You have to use glove when you are handling these wet video tapes or microfiche in order to avoid bio-contaminants.
- Video tapes and microfiches should not be freeze dried.
- You should not make any scratches on the surface of these video tapes or microfiches. Data can be removed if you make any scratches on its surface.
- Shake the video tapes when you find it wet. Thus the moisture of the standing water on it surface will be wiped out.
- Immediate freezing or drying may cause the damage of tapes.
Drying Methods
Different methods are used in the dry process of video tapes and microfiches. Freezing and air drying are the commonly used methods in drying. Natural air drying is quite common among us. Though it is slow, but it is an effective one. In this natural air drying method, air temperature and humidity in the atmosphere help us to dry the things. When you find out that your video tapes or microfiches are exposed to water, you can easily perform natural air drying. Other common methods are given below.
Freezing
It is one of the methods used in drying of video tapes and microfiches. Sometimes it is an effective one to dry out the wet and damaged tapes. Plastic milk crates and cardboard are used as packing materials in the freezing process. In this method the moisture or the water vapor are removed by converting these into ice with the use of freeze drying chamber.
Air Drying
It is the commonly used method to dry out the video tapes and microfiches. In this method the air is allowed to enter into sides of the tape or microfiche and the air will wipe out the moisture or the vapor from the surface of it. As the temperature in the air increases the, the water element in the tapes are dried out rapidly.
