I did somethin’ stupid yesterday…I leaned forward getting up out of chair to answer the door, allowing the two bouncy objects on the front of my chest to knock over my coffee mug, spilling liquid all over my laptop.
I’ll take a break to let you laugh.
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Better?
The laptop is still working, it just isn’t working propperly (insert weird error message in gibberese). Anyway, I let my boyfriend handle the call to customer service, since he speaks better computer than I do. Friendly Neighbourhood Tech Support Guy and boyfriend managed to work out between them that there is now somehting Very Wrong with my harddisk. Boyfriend (directed by FNTSG by phone) unscrews various mystical objects from my laptop, and discover that, well, the harddisk is…there is no delicate way to put this…wet. After fiddling around for a while, they have apparantly decided that boyfriend is to dry out computer, and see if this has any effect, and that final diagnosis will be made when FNTSG calls back tommorow.
So boyfriend is fiddling around with a soggy harddisk, trying to remove cofee stains and moisture. I’m more worried that the damn thing seems to be rattling, but boyfrind assures me it’s meant to do that.
Meanwhile, my boyfriend is stuck without a computer for the next few days, since I have unceremoniously stolen his to finish a paper.
It’s probably toast, unfortunately. The good news is that if its ONLY the hard drive that’s having issues, then you can just pick up a new one, put it in the laptop, and call it a day.
You may be able to revive the hard drive enough to get the data off it… cross your fingers and praying is probably the best way to get that done. Oh yeah, and plug it into an external USB enclosure and plug it into a working computer to get your documents off it. But even if the disk spins to life, I’d just get the data off and not put it back in your computer… it’s only a matter of time before it fails.
C:\windows\utilities\cleanup\spillfix.exe, then select “coffee/tea” from the “file->youdidwhat?” dropdown menu. Don’t forget to check/uncheck the “cream”, “sugar” or “decaf” options.
When my dad had a myoelectric prosthesis, the tech told him that if the electronic box ever got wet, to douse it down with rubbing alcohol and let it air dry. The alcohol will displace any water there, and then completely evaporate to make sure it’s dry. Again, this was years ago, and I have no idea if it will screw anything up or not. Please research further before attempting this.
If more than a tiny amount of liquid actually got inside the hard drive, it’s probably toast. A little tiny bit might conceivably dry inside the case and not get on the platters. But if enough got in to get on the platters, there will be bad spots, and possibly a ruined read/write head. These might be cleaned and recovered by a professional drive restoration company, but that usually costs a few hundred bucks. If your data is valuable, it can be worth it.
But if the problem is just that the liquid has gotten onto the connector pins and is causing
partial shorts on the data cable, you should be ok. You can try this:
Pull the hard drive out (it sounds like you probably have already done this).
Clean & dry the outside of the drive carefully with a damp cloth continually rinsed in clean water.
Clean the pins on the back of the drive carefully with clean water. Don’t let the water sit, just keep dabbing it on and soaking it up with a paper towel or clean cloth.
Clean the connector the hard drive plugs into in the same way. Keep dabbing water on the connector and soaking it back up until the liquid you soak up is absolutely clean, then do it a little more. You can use canned air to help blow the water out of the connector.
Let everything dry thoroughly.
Plug the hard drive in and out of the connector a few times. If there is any left over gunk on any of the pins this may scrape it off. If it looks like any gunk does come off on the pins when you unplug the drive, clean the pins and the connector again until they stay clean.
When everything is clean and dry, put it all back together and you may have a good drive with no problems.
The hard drive is sealed except for a small hole. If coffee got in the small hole you might be in trouble. Wipe the drive down with a damp paper towel, let dry, plug it in and see if it works. Be ready to transfer any data off it if it does work.
Also, laptop hard drives have a rattle to them. This is normal.
I don’t know if it’s harmful, but all the rubbing alcohols I’ve tried – the 70% kind, the 91% kind, and the 99% kind – have all left residues after they evaporate. It’s like white chalky-looking stuff.
Sure you did. It’s okay, you can tell us, you really just stole his computer so that you wouldn’t have to go without SDMB for any length of time. We understand.
Good luck getting the coffee cleaned up. My roommate freshman year did the same thing. Luckily, it ws still under warranty, so she just had to ship it off to the company and they fixed it for her.