Good news for once regarding the flooding in Thailand and HDD manufacturers! Western Digital have reportedly restored production at at least one of their HDD manufacturing plants in Thailand one week ahead of schedule.

WD have also just increased their revenue outlook for the current quarter because of this, where they now expect $1.8 billion in revenue instead of the $1.05 to $1.25 billion previously estimated. Western Digital CEO John Coyne has said:

Much work remains to be done, but we couldn't be more pleased with the effort and results thus far, including tremendous support from our supply partners and customers. The passion, perseverance, ingenuity and execution exhibited by the Western Digital team has been extraordinary and enabled us to make substantial progress in partially restoring our operations in Thailand.

Other operations, however, remain submerged in just under two feet of water, but are expected to be pumped dry within the next we ek or so, after which they'll require decontamination and will need to be refurbished. The clean up operations is said to cost WD something like $50 million, on top of the $225-$275 million in related charges to the flood.