Working in a clean room environment is absolutely vital in the data recovery industry. At Data Recovery Guru, the engineers work in what is known as an ISO 5 - Class 100 cleanroom chamber. The reason working in a clean room environment is necessary is due to the susceptibility to damage by contamination from fingerprints as well as hair and dust particles found in regular air. Once, any particles enter inside a hard disk drive, there is a great danger in causing damage to the mechanical read-write components, and worse, the media itself. While the mechanical components could be replaced in most cases, media damage is irreversible, rendering the data inaccessible. As result, if ever finding in a drive crash situation, the best practice is to find a professional who is equipped to work in a clean room environment.
Here are a couple of companies offering clean room products:
http://www.aircleansystems.com/
http://www.terrauniversal.com/
http://www.cleanairtechnology.com/
