The ultimate diy thread this.
Anyone remember seeing a programme of the Horizon type where they showed how specialist firms recover lost data in computers?
How would one restore a flood damaged computer? There are specialist sprays to protect elctronic boards at sea etc surely?
I've not dealt with anyhing flood damaged but have had good results after 'spillage' accidents by washing circuit boards in distilled water and then leaving several days in an airing cuboard.
If the water was salty then don't expect much.
What are you trying to recover- the machine or data of the hard disk?
There are, generally known as "humiseal" but they are a second line defence. In wet environments sealed boxes are used.
I got involved in this sort of thing over twenty years ago with some very early computer networks that had been in a building and drenched by firemen putting out a fire.
First wash it all out with distilled water.
Then disconnect everything
Dry them out, we used hairdryers
Check resistances to ground of things like power rails
Reconnect everything
Check those power rail resistances again
Switch it on
We got about 70% of the solid state gear running again, the disk drives were junk, as was anything made with a paper PCB.
On the other hand we were the factory making the equipment from scratch so we had the schematics and loads of spare components and lots of experience of working on the kit.
Oh, and you protect stuff going to sea by putting it in a big sealed box.
Things like keyboards go inside sealed boxes with flexible membranes over the keys.
Displays go in a box with a transparent screen.
Specialist boxes cost loads of cash, so people often just try to keep the door closed when at sea and hope there are no splashes...
Thanks for the prompt replies. It is for someone in another forum I visit who was wondering if he could rescue any of the stuff he has that was hit by five hurricanes recently.
You essentially can't recover flooded disks at home. If you are very lucky, some data recovery companies may be willing to attempt to recover some data for thousands of pounds.
Was the kit submerged under muddy flood water for a period of time or just suffer from 6" of rain through a roofless building for 12hrs? If submerged was there much salt in the water? Salt will be a killer unless you can get it rinsed off quickly even a few hours may be too long.
Otherwise dismantle and rinse throughly under running clean water. Use a small, soft brush to remove any muddy deposits. Remove excess mositure with absorbant cloth (kitchen roll), pay particular attention to knooks and crannies around pins of connectors and in shells under sockets etc. Then place the bits to dry somewhere warm for at least
24hrs preferably longer. Reassemble, you may get useful information from measuring the supply rails to ground but as you don't know what the values should be you'll only pick up dead shorts.Reassemble plugin and pray, then start the process of working out which bits are dead and which aren't. Not sure how I'd approach a HD, if the board comes off it's get the wash 'n dry treatment. The casings are pretty well sealed, just have atmospheric pressure vents, so a wipe over to remove any muck.
And operating - while dunked is even worse. Worst case, you can get damage from the power supply going over-voltage or stuff being shorted out (things like power semiconductors being turned on when they should be off).
Best case, you get electrolysis starting, and this can rapidly destroy narrow tracks or short them. I have recovered a cellphone after being dunked in concentrated brine, with assorted copper salts (plating bath that went wrong.), while on. But it was fished out in 5 seconds, battery out in another 3, rinsed in clean water in 10, then dissasembled, stripped apart, all the boards rinsed a couple of times in deionised water, followed by drying in the oven at
100C for 4 hours.Worked fine for 2 years after.
As long as it's only the PCBs, 100C is fine. In fact there are few plastics that will be damaged at 100C. At 100F, it'll need dried for days.
I am somewhat disappointed as I thought the title was about marine recovery. There used to be two 35 foot sailboats up against the Melbourne Causeway (Rte 192) after Frances (the hurricane). Now there is just one, either could have been salvaged before Jeanne (the hurricane) and now one is gone and the remaining boat has the mast broken at the cabin. As an aside there are no piers or docks on the west side of the Indian River in this area, except for the very solid one behind the Eau Gallie library.
:How would one restore a flood damaged computer?
The same way one restores any other kind, once you dry it out.
:There are specialist :sprays to protect elctronic boards at sea etc surely?
Nope. Like everyone else, the Navy simply puts the electronics INSIDE the ship where it's dry.
I favour washing carefully, inspecting for damage then the careful use of a hair dryer and sometimes isopropyl alcohol, followed by leaving overnight in the drying cupboard.
As we have salt water on tap locally, some of the flooding is quite aggressive. A TV distribution amp drenched in salt water and given the above treatment is still in use as are a couple of PC's. Speed of treatment is essential.
-- Jim Watt
I've recovered lots of flooded kit, and most people make one key mistake: they dont let it dry long enough. 24hrs is nowhere near enough, if you power up then youll get lots of failures. The golden rule is 1 week. After 1 week virtually anything will work - monitors, EHT stuff, etc. But, I've never tried HDDs.
So why 1 week? All the water you can see is gone in 24 hrs, but there are lots of little cracks that get no air circulation. Those take a good week to dry out.
BTW sprays are to waterproof leakproof and coronaproof things, its a bit late once somethings already soaked. /dont/ try wd40.
Good luck, NT
My 'overnight in the drying cupboard' really referred to bare PCB's and that is adequate. My cupboard is also very dry and heated with a good air circulation.
-- Jim Watt
Debatable. With the rise of BGA chips, if waters got under them, it can take a long long time to get out.
Isopropanol is good for that, I bought a large supply. However there is no WMD progamme :)
As an example of corrosion, we had a printer infested with mice and one of their little turds took out a track on the board. A good tip for screens and printers coming out of clients in the food bushiness is to leave them in a plastic bag sprayed with insecticide overnight.
-- Jim Watt
Il Mon, 04 Oct 2004 02:22:13 +0200, Jim Watt ha scritto:
my cat sleep near the printer, sometimes on top of it. :)
Best regards from Italy, Dott. Piergiorgio.
Clipped from that other thread:
"There is no salt water involved. All of this water came through the roof. The flooding was minimal in our area. None of the computers were plugged in and none of them are his.
These are computers he put together and sold to other people and now they are coming to him to get them up and running again. Because of the situation he's not as yet gotten to see any of them because he has his own roof issues to deal with there at home.
He was just told to check them and what the problems are. He made sure he told all of the people not to plug anything in until he came and got them or at least took a look at them.
He appreciates everyone's concern for the people there in Florida. They have had a very rough month, but things are starting to get back to normal finally."
He also says thanks for the prayers. I suppose he also means thanks for the help.
My thanks for these responses too.
So how do you think boards with BGAs are washed on the production line? A lot of electronics assemblies these days are cleaned by washing in water. The only things you really need to be worried about are electromechanical items that may not be sealed.
MBQ
Of course they are. They'll be dried at a considerably higher temp than in an airing cupboard though. AIUI, typically around 100C.
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