is there anything salvagable from a wet notebook?

My Inspiron 600m notebook recently met with disaster when a bowl of water overturned on it. Though I tried to give it sufficient time to dry out before booting it up and there were no sparks or smoke involved, it hasn't turned on since. I've resigned myself to getting a new notebook but thought it might be worth a shot to ask if anyone thought the computer or any of its components, especially the hard drive, might be salvagable. Has anyone had a similar experience with a happy ending? Wheres a good place to go to see if it can be repaired or the hard drive recovered?

I'm not expecting any miracles but who knows? Thanks guys.

 

Was the computer running when that happened? Was it plugged in?

You might be able to salvage the HDD, but I would personally get all the data off of it and scrap it. No telling what damage might crop up over time.

CPU and RAM will probably be shot if the water caused a voltage spike, but the LCD might still be usable.

As far as HDD recovery, get an external USB 2.5" enclosure and pop that bad boy into another PC and see if the drive still works. If it spins up you should pull your data off immediately.

FYI, I'd make sure you wait at least a week before turning that thing back on.

As far as repairing the notebook (and be sure to ground yourself while working):
1) Let everything dry out.
2) Take it apart, gently dab all components dry if you see anything wet.
3) Leave it sit with no power source plugged in.
4) Try turning it on after about a week of waiting.

If that doesn't do it, something else got damaged and you'll have to probably replace the notebook. If you can at least get into the BIOS in a week or two you might be able to run the Dell diagnostics and look for faulty components.

 

the hard drive is actually the least salvageable thing, you can salvage the Ram, if you dry it off quickly, and it is possible for a CPU to still work, as long as there's no rust on it.

I once found a Sony VAIO that some one had left at a beach, it was full of sand and water. I immediately popped it open and removed the ram, CPU, and HDD.

The ram had sand and dirt all over it, but I was able to clean it with a paint brush and a dremmel, the two stick actually still worked once I put them in a different notebook. The CPU was a P4 3.2GHz, and that actually worked once I cleaned it too. The harddrive did not though, I think it was probebly because it got water in the breather hole. Also the LCD panel, and Dvd drive it had were destroyed. The battery looks new, but I have no way of testing it, because I don't have a notebook to test it on.

 

That drive probably didn't work because water carried some grains into the drive itself. Foreign things do not play nicely with internal HDD parts.

 

BTW, read this.

 

You can also salvage the keyboard---the keys very least.

And if you're quick enough, you can also salvage the beverage.

 

Haha, good call.

Depending on how wet and where, you could salvage everything but the motherboard (which is the first thing to take a dump when a notebook gets wet).

Like they said, take those components out and test them if you can. Maybe put together a low-power desktop system with them or sell them.