boxturt Posted June 16, 2005 Posted June 16, 2005 Yesterday my now ex-cat knocked a flower vase full of flowers and water off of a shelf mounted directly above my open and running laptop. Ok, I won't blame it on my now ex-cat, she can't help it. Afterall - cats eat flora. So I shall curse my now ex-wife who put a flower vase full of flowers and water on a shelf mounted directly above my open and running laptop within easy reach of my hungry ex-cat. The story is true but I jest - I blame me. Dell Inspiron 1100 and the owner's manual actually has a chapter on what to do if the unit gets wet. So I have removed everything removeable (HD, memory, battery) and have left it open and 'ventilating' for the past 24 hours. Ok, that's all fine and good but I don't have my hopes up too high for it coming back to life when I try to power it up again in another day or so. Here comes the question part: Can I put the hard drive into another Dell 1100 to retrieve my 'stuff' without harming the second, working unit? This of course assumes my HD is not damaged. It also assumes that my daughter would be kind enough to drive down with her laptop and give her old man a little help I look forward to your replies and as always I thank you. Quote
TCH-Rick Posted June 16, 2005 Posted June 16, 2005 You should be able to retrieve the stuff off the hard drive either by putting it in another laptop or using an adapter to make it an external drive. I got a case off of EBay and have seen them at CompUSA that you can plug the laptop HD into and then hook it up to a USB port. Quote
Madmanmcp Posted June 16, 2005 Posted June 16, 2005 Can I put the hard drive into another Dell 1100 to retrieve my 'stuff'yeswithout harming the second maybe This all depends on what happened with the water and how much damage was done. Normally I would say there will be no harm. If there was damage to the hard drive it "should" just not work, you put the original drive back in and you are back to normal. But this is not 100%. Quote
Deverill Posted June 16, 2005 Posted June 16, 2005 If you can get to where the water went in try to wipe it so there are no deposits left behind if possible. If not it's probably not a problem. Also, I would try the HD in your daughter's computer first just in case yours is fried and it blows an otherwise working HD - but if it breaks her computer I'll deny ever saying this (Although in all seriousness, the chances of that are pretty dogone small.) Quote
boxturt Posted June 16, 2005 Author Posted June 16, 2005 Yea, in theory it should work but.......... one never knows. I'm not sure I want to risk ending up with 2 wrecked machines. If mine does not come back around I think I'll forget it, I don't think I'll lose too much data (thank goodness for backups) and I may look for the ext. case / adapter. I'd mostly just hate to lose the machine as it was a gift from a group of very supportive friends. Thanks and I'll let you know how it goes. Quote
Head Guru Posted June 16, 2005 Posted June 16, 2005 Wow sorry to hear about that Ty. Next time no Vase above laptop? Bill Quote
stevevan Posted June 16, 2005 Posted June 16, 2005 If it's any consolation Ty, when Hurricane Ivan hit last year, it tore the roof off of the radar room at the Pensacola Airport. Fortunately, the controllers, like you, turned things off quickly. After some drying out and cleaning, the radar scopes (and other electronic items) came back up without any problems. Hopefully you got to it in time and your laptop will come back up without any problems either. Good luck. Quote
boxturt Posted June 16, 2005 Author Posted June 16, 2005 Well, it's toasted and not in a good, Quiznos sort of way. I had a nice long chat with Dell support. We tried this, that and the other thing and then we tried it all again and then again but in reverse. I was told to try recharging (letting it recharge) and trying again but that's not happenning either sooooooooo .......it looks like the mobo be fried. Probably cheaper to buy a new laptop Thanks to all for the input. I appreciate it very much. Ty Quote
Madmanmcp Posted June 17, 2005 Posted June 17, 2005 Sorry to hear that Ty. Moving forward you may want to think about what Rick suggested so you can possibly recover your data. The MB maybe fried and the hard drive may still be workable. Hooking it up as an external drive would eliminate the possibilities of damage to the other laptop. Quote
boxturt Posted June 17, 2005 Author Posted June 17, 2005 Thanks Bob. I have ordered a hard drive case and will give that a shot. Quote
borfast Posted June 17, 2005 Posted June 17, 2005 Sorry to hear that, Ty. I hope you have better luck in your attempt to recover your data. Quote
TCH-Don Posted June 17, 2005 Posted June 17, 2005 I ordered one of those usb cases from tigerdirect and love it. Quote
Blackcat Posted June 17, 2005 Posted June 17, 2005 Good luck Ty, let us know your results (sure, they'll be great! ) Quote
TCH-Bruce Posted June 17, 2005 Posted June 17, 2005 Man Ty, that's just sad. Good luck recovering the data. Quote
boxturt Posted June 20, 2005 Author Posted June 20, 2005 This just in............... IT'S STILL DEAD!!! Anyway, for $10.06 (s/h inc.) i got a HD case from Ebay. It says it's for IBM Travelstar but it fits the 2.5 drive from laptop. Plugged it in and it works. My data is all there, which is helpful but I'm still bummed. So thus ended another chapter in the ongoing saga................ Quote
Madmanmcp Posted June 20, 2005 Posted June 20, 2005 Thanks for the update Ty. Sounds like the 10 dollar investment was well worth it. I had little hope for the lappy, I've seen too many similar cases with the same results. Water and electricity don't mix well and the hardware is usually the big loser. Quote
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