I AM VERY VERY VERY SAD!!!!

[Stuart]

Hi,
We had the same problem when I was kid. In my parents house, Mr Sump was the mediator that kept us from having the indoor pool. They dug a hole in the corner of the cellar floor and cemented a chimney tile in the floor to get the water with the sump before it got to floor level.
Isnt it amazing, a motorcycle battery charger, Battery Tender (it wont boil over a battery). Then a marine battery and a marine boat bilge pump, all to protect a residential home.
Stuart

[huggy591]

DavidL,

No, most hard drives are not completely sealed - they have a small set of breather holes with a fine filter over them to allow pressure to equalize between inside and outside the drive. However, it sounds like the water may not have reached that far. Drives are designed to be dust-tight, not water-tight.

- Gordon

If we are what we eat, then I'm fast, easy, and cheap!

[krseaman]

i've had good luck in the past buying an identical drive, (save platters/heads/model/ etc) and replacing the controller on the bad drive with the new controller board. This works if the mechanicals are fine but the controller is spent.

I've done this twice, and been a hero each time.

[AutomatedOutlet]

That's a great idea!

Martin Custer
Martin@AutomatedOutlet.com
www.AutomatedOutlet.com
Authorized HomeSeer Distributor

[dpriest]

My Dad's hard drive had been accidentally formatted by a computer store when his PC was upgraded.

I was able to recover all of the data with this application.

I'm not affiliated at all with www.runtime.org.
Good luck. Hope this may be of some assistance,

dp

[kahaen]

You might be suprised with what can be saved. We lost our basement to 7 feet of water. The water was inches from coming on to the first floor. All of the electronics and tools in the basement were under water for over a day. It was all saved. If the water was dirty, rinse everything out (what is a little more water). Let everything completely dry before you try it. Maybe even wait a week. Water inside the components when they are turned on will do the damage. For all metal items, WD40 will stop them from rusting. I used a spray bottle, and 1 gallon jug of WD40, but all of my metal tools look fine. Hopefully you are suprised that it is not as bad as it seems. Good luck.

[Stevech]

Here's my experience...

Most electronics will work fine after being wet if you (1) hose it down with clean or distilled water - thoroughly (2) put it in a 130 degree oven for several hours to REALLY dry it out. Shake it. spin it. Dry some more. Be sure it's dry in the nooks and crannies before turning it on. 130 degrees for hours and hours non-operating won't hurt it.

It'll probably work. We used to wash and dry Motorla radios pulled from vehicles as a matter of routine.

[krseaman]

I can't see how water would get into the innards of a disk. so the data/platters should be fine. The controller should be fine when dried out as well. -- I'll submerge a few here for a couple days, and then boot them up. i'll report back in a few days.

[Rupp]

You have that many extra drives to waist? WOW!

-Rupp

[electron]

while I am sure the drive is easy to recover, most hd's do have breatherholes, which is how water could get in if the drive was really soaked.

---
Do you cocoon?
http://www.CocoonTech.com

[Rick Tinker]

I saw a flooded Octel voicemail system come back to life after opening everything up so it could dry out.

Trying the hard drive before opening it up to make sure there was no water in it was probably the worst thing to happen to it, as I suspect the water killed the power to the PC long before it reached the drive.

At any rate, no warranty repair for it, so nothing to lose by removing the cover and making sure that all water is out of it.

If there was water on the circuit board when it was powered up in your father's PC, then you can try buying the exact same hard drive somewhere and swapping the controller board - it sometimes works!

Good luck! Our hopes and wishes are with you!

Regards,

Rick Tinker (a.k.a. "Tink")
HomeSeer Technologies