Damaged Hardware

A friend of mine had a flood a couple of days ago that caused his tower and hard drive to be immersed in dirty water. He asked me whether the drive could be recovered, and my first response was "not possible". But I thought I'd ask the pundits here whether I was wrong.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The hard drive is pretty well sealed. A check over of the electronics will give an idea of how bad they are - I know of PCs that have spent months in the rain but when bought in, dried out and sprayed with some WD40 have worked fine.

It's also possible that even if the drive electronics are knackered it may be possible to get the same model of drive and swap the electronics over to be able to retrieve any important data - if it is important enough to make it worthwhile.

Edited by ian72 (Thu 04-Dec-14 15:50:41)

Contrary to what many think, electronic equipmant doesn't mind water too much, provided there's none of it around when the power is on!

This is what I'd do if it were mine, but it's not advice, it's an "at your own risk" suggestion:

Wash off all the dirt you can see with clean, preferably distilled, water. Pay attention to any nooks and crannies. A squeezy or spray bottle and a soft brush might help.

Pat it dry as far as you can, then put it somewhere warm (eg the airing cupboard) to dry out for at least 24 hours.

Then connect it up, say a short prayer and switch it on.

+1 to Bill.

I knocked my walkabout phone off its charger into the bucket of water for the dogs the other day by mistake. I immediately whipped out the batteries, shook out the excess water, which was rattling inside, dried it off on a towel, then popped it on top of a radiator for 24hrs. Unfortunately it works perfectly, I was looking for an excuse to get a new one.

I think it's important in this case to wash it as well as making sure it's dry- no knowing what deposits might be left behind on the controller card, and random conductive paths are not a good idea.

Again, if it were me, I'd take the card off and clean the other side as well, but I wouldn't recommend that to anyone not experienced- taking it off is easy, getting it back on again, still working, might not be!

Many thanks for the advice, guys.
I haven't seen the damaged tower yet, but I'll ask him to bring it over to me so that I can try some of the suggestions.