saving a wet harddrive?

[Tsakali_]

lets say a hardrive was submerged in water (but was not running at the moment) can I still get files off of it in some way?

[Tsakali_]

k dumb question but wet circuit boards get damaged because of chemical reactions with water regardless of their off(no electricity) state at the time?

[R00k]

That's not necessarily true. A lot of circuit boards (most of them in today's electronics) will work fine after getting wet, as long as they have dried off enough.

If you could take the drive apart, and use a blowdryer to dry all the parts, then it will probably work fine.

[shiznit]

Dry it off for a few days then give it a try, how did you get it wet btw?

[eepberries]

Isn't Tsakali the one from nahlins?

[andyman]

Probably tried to clean the hard drive

[SOAPboy]

That's not necessarily true. A lot of circuit boards (most of them in today's electronics) will work fine after getting wet, as long as they have dried off enough.

If you could take the drive apart, and use a blowdryer to dry all the parts, then it will probably work fine.

if this was salt water at all he's fucked even if it was off.

:icon14:

[Pooinyourmouth]

If the drive was under water for any lengh of time it's gone. If say you just dunked it for a second, you could dry it and it may work.

[SOAPboy]

If the drive was under water for any lengh of time it's gone. If say you just dunked it for a second, you could dry it and it may work.

Untrue.. unless its salt water, he COULD in theory dry it out and get the data off of it..

it might not be a stable HD anymore, but the data is salvagable (sp)

[R00k]

That's not necessarily true. A lot of circuit boards (most of them in today's electronics) will work fine after getting wet, as long as they have dried off enough.

If you could take the drive apart, and use a blowdryer to dry all the parts, then it will probably work fine.

if this was salt water at all he's fucked even if it was off.

True, didn't think of that.

[[xeno]Julios]

If the drive was under water for any lengh of time it's gone. If say you just dunked it for a second, you could dry it and it may work.

not saying you're wrong, but I'm curious as to why you say this.

[Foo]

At a guess it's because hard drive platters are in sealed units, with very small valves to allow air in/out. If immersed, the water may enter through this valve and will not drain back out.

[r3t]

disassembling a harddrive will result in a dead drive. There's a reason why harddrives are sealed, and that's dust and dirt. There's no way you could prevent any dust from getting on the platters.

[[xeno]Julios]

At a guess it's because hard drive platters are in sealed units, with very small valves to allow air in/out. If immersed, the water may enter through this valve and will not drain back out.

ic

[SOAPboy]

disassembling a harddrive will result in a dead drive. There's a reason why harddrives are sealed, and that's dust and dirt. There's no way you could prevent any dust from getting on the platters.

Ive ripped apart HDs before, had a bad read/write head.. swapped one from another HD.. saved my data..

Its possible, just dont expect any long term use after..

[dzjepp]

disassembling a harddrive will result in a dead drive. There's a reason why harddrives are sealed, and that's dust and dirt. There's no way you could prevent any dust from getting on the platters.

Professional drive recovery companies recover data from badly burned drivers (not saying it's always succesful) but wouldn't they have to take it apart at least to some extent to service it?

[SOAPboy]

disassembling a harddrive will result in a dead drive. There's a reason why harddrives are sealed, and that's dust and dirt. There's no way you could prevent any dust from getting on the platters.

Professional drive recovery companies recover data from badly burned drivers (not saying it's always succesful) but wouldn't they have to take it apart at least to some extent to service it?

Yes..

[Foo]

They have dust free facilities for doing that (like chip manufacturers)

[Tormentius]

They have dust free facilities for doing that (like chip manufacturers)

They're also extremely expensive.

[Nightshade]

Salt water will make no difference versus fresh water in a power-off immersion in the short term. If you can dry out the drive, you should be able to recover the data.
As time goes by, the residual salt will corrode the shit out of any metal it's contacted in the drive, much more so than fresh water.
If the power was on and salt water hit it, that's an instant paperweight. You can theoretically submerge anything electrical in distilled, deionized water, as there's nothing in it to conduct electricity. However, I'm not about to try it.

[Pooinyourmouth]

At a guess it's because hard drive platters are in sealed units, with very small valves to allow air in/out. If immersed, the water may enter through this valve and will not drain back out.

Correct. If that small hole wasn't there at all then you could just replace the green board and the drive would be ok, no matter what kind of water you dropped it in.

[Tsakali_]

Isn't Tsakali the one from nahlins?

yup

[Tsakali_]

what about capacitors? they hold electrical charge and that could create some shortages if ti comes in contact with water?

but anyway fyi it was lake water, well more like brackish water

[Pauly]

Please use T&T for all tech related questions

[Nightshade]

They'd have to be fairly large to create any significant damage when rapidly discharged. I wouldn't expect anything sizeable inside a hard drive.