This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment Exactly. Like your disclaimer states, the job of opening up a hard drive = is not for a novice. Like the small print in TV car commercials says: = trained driver on a closed track. Don't try this at home. Thanks for your = follow-up. -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On = Behalf Of Sarah Fox Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2005 8:47 PM To: Pianotech Subject: Re: WAIT! NO! - RE: When your day goes in the toilet Hi Geoff, =20 Your luck has apparently been worse than mine. ;-) Yes, when water = with any ionic content hits a board, you have gizillions of tiny "soft" = shorts, as you suggest, and that's usually enough to thoroughly confuse any = logic circuitry. However, if there aren't any static sensitive circuits mixed = in with high voltage circuits, the device will usually only experience = "brain drain" and won't get zapped. =20 About the hard drive, I remember the bad ol' days of hard drives -- back = in the MFM and RLL days (Might Function Minimally and Run Life Limited). = I often received a desperate phone call from a fellow grad student, = wanting me to render aid after a hard drive crash. I would always tell the person = to shut down the hard drive RIGHT NOW and not to run it again until I could = get there. The drive would frequently be making dragging and scraping = noises. Even so, I could still recover a large chunk of the data. The drive was only good for perhaps an hour or so of runtime after making noise, and = the failure was progressive. I would always autopsy the hard drive = afterwards and find tons of debris in it. Modern hard drives don't crash quite so brilliantly as the old ones, but I remember recently replacing a 30GB = drive in a friends laptop. There was not data loss, but the drive was = definitely making noise, hence my recommendation to back up the data NOW and to = order in a replacement drive. She used the drive for another couple of days = while the new drive was on order. It never went "down" but continued to make dragging noises (perhaps from a munched head on an unused platter). =20 The lesson from all of this is that a hard drive can indeed run with = dust, debris, etc. inside. In fact there is an internal filter that catches debris as it is generated during deterioration of the internal works. However, when debris is afoot, the drive's life expectancy is VERY = limited. I'm not saying that there should ever be any reason to break the seal on = a hard drive. But just the same, if it's necessary, it can be done. Just = not for long -- just long enough to pull off the data. =20 Having said this, my suggestion was merely to bleed distilled water in = and out of the hard drive through the filtered ventillation port to rinse = out the fluids from the inside. I know this sounds awful, but the water can = all be boiled off at room temperature in a complete vacuum. There are lots = of people with vacuum pumps, including automotive air conditioning service companies and high school physics teachers. ;-) Alternatively, take = the top off of the platter housing, rinse, and dry. Then run the thing = open, long enough to recover all the data. Believe it or not, I've run dying = hard drives open before, just to see them work. They could function that = way. This would probably be the approach I'd take if my HD took a dunk in the toilet. =20 But then again, THESE THINGS SHOULD ONLY BE DONE BY QUALIFIED, = PROFESSIONAL DATA RECOVERY PERSONNEL!!! (My disclaimer.) =20 Peace, Sarah =20 ----- Original Message -----=20 From: Geoff Sykes <mailto:ivories.52@earthlink.net> =20 To: 'Pianotech' <mailto:pianotech@ptg.org> =20 Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2005 1:48 AM Subject: WAIT! NO! - RE: When your day goes in the toilet When you get an electronic device wet, for whatever reason, and it was turned on at the time, you will be lucky if it lives at all. Almost all liquids hold dissolved solids likes salts and minerals and a whole bunch = of other stuff that is usually conductive. A wet device usually dies when = power is applied to components that have contacts shorted out with these = dissolved conductive solids. What happens is the contacts short out and delicate components go "paff", kablooie. If this were to happen to your TV you = would get sparks, smoke and possibly fire. On a cell phone, a PDA or a laptop = it's just quietly dead.=20 =20 So, on most devices, without hard drives, that were not turned on at the time of their dunking, the first thing you DON'T want to do is turn it = on. What you do want to do is quickly remove the battery, open up the = device, (carefully), and rinse it out in DISTILLED water. Make sure it is = ABSOLUTELY DRY, (give it a couple of days), before you replace the battery and turn = it on again.=20 =20 Now - regarding hard drives. DON'T EVER BREAK THE SEAL! EVER! They're = sealed for a reason. Hard drives are assembled in a "clean" environment and any teensy tiny invisible speck of microscopic dust that gets into one will destroy the platter, and your data, guaranteed. The magnetic pickups = inside a hard disk drive don't actually touch the platter but actually ride on = an extremely thin wave of air that is created by the spinning of the disk itself. Should anything bigger than a molecule or so get trapped between = the pickup head and the platter it is going to act like sandpaper and score = the platter making your data absolutely irretrievable. Once again, DO NOT = EVER BREAK THE SEAL ON A HARD DRIVE!=20 =20 Instead, as a protective measure, back up your data frequently. And, = should you ever find yourself with a non-functional drive that contains data = that you absolutely can't live without, find a company that specializes in = data retrieval. They can retrieve data from almost anything. The good ones = can probably even retrieve data from a hard drive that's been opened. But they're not cheap.=20 =20 -- Geoff Sykes Assoc. LA Chapter =20 -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On = Behalf Of Sarah Fox Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 4:25 PM To: Pianotech Subject: Re: When your day goes in the toilet PS I even resurrected a laptop computer that had a glass of wine spilled into it (the computer I'm using now). However, if anything liquid gets = into a hard drive (which fortunately it didn't), the hard drive would need to = be replaced.... unless..... to rescue your data, at least... =20 (1) Put the hard drive into a container of distilled water. (2) Slowly pull a partial vacuum on the hard drive to draw out the air inside, and sloooowly release the vacuum. (The water will flow into the hard drive through the filtered vent hole.) (3) Shake water around inside the hard drive. (4) Remove from the water and slooooowly pull a vacuum again, which will cause the water to come back out. (5) Repeat a few times=20 (6) Vacuum out the water, and draw a hard, prolonged vacuum to = completely evacuate all remaining water. (7) Pray to the computer gods. (8) Reinstall and power up. (9) Pull your data off of the hard drive and load it onto a replacement. Why? The internal debris would have been scattered from the filter, so = the hard drive's life expectancy might not be so good. (10) Send me an email to tell me if it worked. :-) =20 Peace, Sarah =20 ----- Original Message -----=20 From: Sarah Fox <mailto:sarah@graphic-fusion.com> =20 To: Pianotech <mailto:pianotech@ptg.org> =20 Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 7:02 PM Subject: Re: When your day goes in the toilet Hi James, =20 For your Nokia and anybody else's near-flush experience, take heart that most electronic devices CAN be brought back to life if you do it the = right way: (1) Remove batteries. (2) Submerse in a container of distilled = water. (3) Open the case to expose the insides. (4) Flush with a couple more = fresh rinses of distilled water. (5) Blow out the excess water and let dry (*thoroughly*). (6) Reassemble and power up. (Why is distilled water different from tap water? It doesn't have any salts in it and therefore doesn't conduct electricity.) I had done this several times throughout = the years and then ran into some guy who was an electronics technician for = the Navy. He had used the exact same method on a daily basis (and with = great success) on equipment that got dunked in seawater. ;-) =20 Peace, Sarah =20 ----- Original Message -----=20 From: James Grebe <mailto:pianoman@accessus.net> =20 To: Pianotech <mailto:pianotech@ptg.org> =20 Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 7:34 AM Subject: Re: When your day goes in the toilet Maybe your pocket PC came back, but cell phones do not after being = dunked in the toilet. I had that experience and when the battery gets wet if has = a dye that shows it has been wet on the battery and it is NOT covered = under warranty and the cell phone was unfixable. I had to go back to my old = cell phone because the new one, though only 1 month old it had to be replaced = and they could not fix it. I did not have replacement insurance. I used to = have a Motorola pager and it went through the washing machine but after 1 day = of drying out it did come back. Praise be to Motorola and not Nokia. Jim James Grebe Piano-Forte Tuning & Repair Creator of Handsome Hardwood Caster Cups, piano benches, writing = instruments (314) 608-4137 WWW.JamesGrebe.com 1526 Raspberry Lane Arnold, MO 63010 BECOME WHAT YOU BELIEVE! pianoman@accessus.net ----- Original Message -----=20 From: Piannaman@aol.com=20 To: pianotech@ptg.org=20 Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 11:32 PM Subject: When your day goes in the toilet >From the files of "Embarassing but True." If you can't laugh at = yourself, who CAN you laugh at? =20 So I finish tuning this lady's piano, and the diuretic effects of the morning's coffee kick in. "M'am, may I use your facilities?" =20 "Yes, no problem." She shows me to the door. =20 =20 I'm wearing my shop apron. Don't know why, probably because of the convenient pocket space it affords me to put things like my pocket PC in(foreshadowing here...) =20 Business done, apron back in place--without my IPAQ, which has fallen = into the (fortunately freshly flushed) toilet. Flushed for most of the day = were appointments, Tunelab, contacts, and map functions. =20 =20 Things to be thankful for:=20 =20 My wonderful wife, who offered me personalized GPS service via my cell = phone from her job at the university. =20 I tune mostly by ear, anyway. (4 of the five jobs consisted of lowering = the pitch on new pianos, 2 by over 20 cents each). =20 Since my day was so busy, I'd made out all of today's invoices in = advance, so at least I had everyone's address handy. =20 SD cards, which saved EVERYTHING today. =20 Water dries out. =20 Computers can come back from a dunking.=20 =20 It's been a long day. Time for a glass o' vino. =20 Dave Stahl =20 =20 =20 =20 ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/19/00/09/b3/attachment.htm ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC