Hard disk giant Western Digital said late last week that it has partially restarted production at a facility in Thailand, an announcement which sent its share price climbing upwards. WD was forced to shut down its Thailand operations in October due to severe flooding that left its facilities and machinery immersed under water. For now, WD says that production in one of its buildings in Bang Pa-in has been restarted a week ahead of internal expectations; facilities at another location in Navanakorn are expected to be pumped dry within 10 days.

Unprecedented flooding resulting from the monsoon season caused manufacturing to grind to a standstill in affected regions of the country, also affecting HDD makers such as Toshiba Global Storage Technology and component suppliers like Nidec. WD makes 60 percent of its hard disk drives in Thailand, and as a result was hit hard by the floods.

In a statement, CEO John Coyne said that the company has made "substantial progress in partially restoring our operations in Thailand, well in advance of our earliest expectations when the floods hit." It remains to be seen whether an expected global hard disk drive shortage as a direct result of the floods will materialize.

WD has revised its forecast for the current quarter to $1.8 billion in revenue, a step up from an October forecast of between $1.05 billion and $1.25 billion.

For more:
- check out this article at Forbes
- check out this article at Bloomberg

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