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    Spilled Wine on 1520, Reinstalling Windows Two Partitions Help

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by wohast, Jan 3, 2008.

  1. wohast

    wohast Notebook Consultant

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    So the other day I spilled wine all over the keyboard on my 1520 and it instantly froze. Upon drying it up and restarting it said that there was no hard drive detected. So i opened it up, dried the harddrive, let it sit for a few hours, and then it finally recognized the harddrive.

    Now it seems like Windows has tons of problems now. I cant right click on the desktop or explorer crashes. Object dock loads in the system tray but wont display my bars, and I cant open it in any way. Several games wont run anymore. My system was in perfect condition before the spill with 0 problems. Will a clean install of vista fix these problems? or did the damage from the wine mess things up and I will need to have hardware replaced?

    Second I have two partitions...75gb on C and 155gb on D. I have windows vista installed on C and I just want to wipe C and reinstall it there, without touching D in any way. Can anyone just quickly explain how to do this? I am out of town right now but my friend has a M1330 with the exact same vista home premium install disk. Can I use this to do the reinstall or am I going to need to vista install disk that came with my computer?

    thanks in advance to anyone who can help
     
    wohast, Jan 3, 2008
    #1
  2. Crimsonman

    Crimsonman Ex NBR member :cry:

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    Wine? That's new.

    I believe you roasted your harddrive with the wine. I just spilled water on mine two minutes ago, but I got it all out. I would get a whole new harddrive, but you can try a installation.

    If the M1330 disk has the 1330 drivers in it, no it won't work, but if they're separate they will.
     
    Crimsonman, Jan 3, 2008
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  3. wohast

    wohast Notebook Consultant

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    is there any test i can run on the comp that can tell if the HD is messed up?
     
    wohast, Jan 3, 2008
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  4. xYike

    xYike Notebook Geek

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    How about a breathalyzer ??

    What about contacting Dell support and telling them you suspect a HD problem, and ask them if there are any diagnostic tools you can run against it?
     
    xYike, Jan 3, 2008
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  5. neilnpatel

    neilnpatel Notebook Evangelist

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    just contact dell and say it stopped working, make sure you get rid of alll evidence
     
    neilnpatel, Jan 3, 2008
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  6. JTOverath

    JTOverath Notebook Evangelist

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    Unless you have Complete Care then it doesn't matter they will fix it anyway.
     
    JTOverath, Jan 4, 2008
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  7. Aderon

    Aderon Notebook Enthusiast

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    Unless you DON'T have complete care.
     
    Aderon, Jan 4, 2008
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  8. vbrookie

    vbrookie Notebook Consultant

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    It could be more the your hard drive. Did you run diagnostic test? I know it's not perfect, but it might tell you something if there's major problem with your system.
     
    vbrookie, Jan 4, 2008
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  9. H3rmaN

    H3rmaN Notebook Evangelist

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    The thing is that whine is acidic (pH between 3.3 and 3.7 for most table wines), so it might start to corrode parts within the laptop, which means it could be anything causing problems!
     
    H3rmaN, Jan 4, 2008
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  10. neilnpatel

    neilnpatel Notebook Evangelist

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    wine is ever so slightly acidic, 3.3 is a bit high woudnt you say, anyway if u are that worried make sure u try it out completely and also dont try doing nay chemsitry experiments ie adding NaCO3 to it
     
    neilnpatel, Jan 4, 2008
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  11. neilnpatel

    neilnpatel Notebook Evangelist

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    okay well if you still have the bottle of wine see if it has the oh on it, a ph of 3 maybe damgin but 4 (half the acidity) porbbaly wont be.
     
    neilnpatel, Jan 4, 2008
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  12. B2TheEYo

    B2TheEYo Notebook Deity

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    Let this be a lesson.

    Don't compute and drink..
     
    B2TheEYo, Jan 4, 2008
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  13. neilnpatel

    neilnpatel Notebook Evangelist

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    lol its funny, but i really feel bad for the OP, such an innocent mistake could maybe ruin his comp, worse come to worse, clean and play dumb with customer service, if you have on site care you should be able to repair it by distracting the engineer lol
     
    neilnpatel, Jan 4, 2008
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  14. H3rmaN

    H3rmaN Notebook Evangelist

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    yes, it is a bit high, but the coating on the PCBs begin to desolve in mild acids. Dunno if a pH of 3 would be enough to make it desolve (probably not), but it will def wear it away to some degree...
     
    H3rmaN, Jan 4, 2008
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  15. alexplantman

    alexplantman Notebook Guru

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    alexplantman, Jan 4, 2008
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  16. lambchops468

    lambchops468 Notebook Evangelist

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    since everybody's telling you to do hdd diagnostics but not actually telling you how to do them....here's how

    (a small guide, but the commands are outdated for SATA)
    http://www.linux.com/articles/55366

    first, you need to get some kind of linux live cd since your windows is **drunk**. Go find a cd burner and a computer and download knoppix or the one they recommend in the article. You need to burn with the cd image option. After its booted or whatever, open a command prompt (if there's already one, or if its not, look for konsole or xterm) and type

    su

    then u can run those commands -- your device node will be "/dev/sda"

    u also need the "-data" option -- insert that somewhere between smartctl and /dev/sda
     
    lambchops468, Jan 4, 2008
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