Bit of a catastrophe

**expat** · July 30th, 2021, 07:38

Our house flooded badly Sunday wrecking our whole downstairs and we’ll have to move out for up to 12 months.

But never mind that LOL. PC box on the rug had about 5-6 inches of water in it for a short time. All drained and dry and have had delivered (again since this past February) a new power supply which clearly is toast as the PC was on asleep and sits on the very bottom of the case. Been in touch with a recommended data recovery firm and the guy was optimistic no data will be lost but also I could maybe get it all back running myself. I have in the box in ascending order a 250g Samsung SSD, another of the same and at the top of the stack a Seagate 1tr mechanical hard drive. One of the SSD’s is the C/boot/W7 OS drive. The other SSD and HDD have all my FS stuff on them. I think all were briefly soaked. So this kind fellow said what I need to do is open the SSD’s to check if they had been wet or there was residue (river silt) and then I think clean carefully the contacts. Ditto on the PCB of the HDD. That way the drive electronics should not fail on power up. Then I could safely connect the new PSU and see if she will boot and I can see the drives. Problem is the Samsung SSD’s need a weird “pentalobe” screwdriver and I get scant info what size it should be - either a 1.2mm or 1.5mm - could be just a typo in what I found Googling.

Grateful if anyone has done this and opinions generally. I offered to send all three drives to him to recover the data but he said no, that shouldn’t be necessary. I could not continue while on the phone with him as I didn’t have the right tools to proceed.

**p14u2nv** · July 30th, 2021, 14:06

Other than local pc repair shops or eBay, are there any camera repair shops close by? Just a thought...

***Ascua*** · July 31st, 2021, 01:21

Hi Expat, sorry to hear that!

When you clean, use Isopropyl alcohol (IPA), rubbing alcohol in the UK, and one of these teensy little toothbrushes, it would help with the removal of particles...

Good luck!

***MrZippy*** · July 31st, 2021, 04:38

Originally Posted by Ascua

Hi Expat, sorry to hear that!

When you clean, use Isopropyl alcohol (IPA), rubbing alcohol in the UK, and one of these teensy little toothbrushes, it would help with the removal of particles...

Good luck!

When looking for IPA (Isopropyl Alcohol) look on the label and search for 99% as opposed to 70% (rubbing alcohol). You want the purest you can find with no other contaminates in it!

**Naismith** · July 31st, 2021, 08:04

You have my sympathy, we came home yesterday to a flood in the basement. It was in the very place where until just a very few weeks ago my PC and guitars were stored but fortunately we had moved them to another room. (phew!). Close call. Even more remarkable was the fact a plumber came out at the start of a holiday weekend and fixed the leak within 3 hours. Now I have a project to replace a bunch of drywall, flooring and baseboards. Not worth even claiming. Old houses (1975!!) what can I say. Our third flood in 16 years.
Hope all turns out well for you or at least as much as can be expected.

***arfyhun*** · July 31st, 2021, 13:28

expat, add me to your reader's list. Please keep us updated on your progress.

Best of luck, chin up!!

Graham, Norfolk, G.B.

***Duckie*** · July 31st, 2021, 18:02

expat, sorry for your dilemma. Built ours in '81. All 3 levels have flooded at different times in the 40 years we've been here, downstairs twice, caused by 3 broken pipes and one busted water heater, the last was just 3 weeks ago. Took 4 days for a plumber to finally get to us on his schedule all the while the water was shut off (after the fact!). However, none of mine seems to compare to the type damage sounds like you have.

Wish I could offer some help with the electronics but I'm afraid that's way above my pay grade!

Rootin' for ya. Best of luck.

Steve

**expat** · August 1st, 2021, 00:28

Thanks all for your kind and supportive words.

Old houses (1975!!) what can I say.

This one is a bit older (1498)!

**Tako_Kichi** · August 1st, 2021, 07:12

Unless things have changed since I left the UK (almost 30 years ago!) pure isopropyl alcohol (99%) was not sold 'over the counter' at chemists/pharmacies as it was considered to be a high risk product for abuse by certain members of society (think winos and meths drinkers). At the time I worked as a recording studio engineer and as a CCTV studio technician in a College studio complex (I used to teach there part-time too) and we used copious amounts of isopropyl to clean the record heads on the multi-track tape machines and to clean the heads and tape transports on all the video recorders and cameras. It also worked great to remove 'Chinagraph' pencil wax from mark up strips on mixing desks and text from video clapper boards.

Whenever I needed more I would have to ask the staff behind the counter of the local 'Boots' pharmacy area for it and then I would get grilled as to why I wanted it (having long hair and a beard probably didn't help!) but once I explained it was required for cleaning electronic equipment they let me have it in whatever quantities I wanted including up to a gallon at a time!

If you are going to try cleaning your HDs yourself make sure you do it in a scrupulously clean area and DO NOT be tempted to use cotton swabs (cotton buds, Q-Tips and the like) as they WILL leave strands of cotton behind on things! I used to use specially made cleaning swabs that had a plastic handle and the business end was wrapped in soft chamois leather and they got rid of tape/wax build up without leaving anything behind or snagging on delicate record heads. I know multi-track reel-to-reel tape machines and video tape machines have gone the way of the dinosaur but I bet you can still buy those leather cleaning swabs from electronic supply houses or Amazon UK.

To use the swabs dip them in a small container of fresh isopropyl (tobacco tin (if those still exist!), metal sweet tin or plastic pill bottle etc.) and gently rub any dirt away. Regularly wash the swab off in a second container of isopropyl kept just for the dirty stuff and then re-soak with clean isopropyl and repeat as necessary.

Good luck and I hope you can recover your data. We have recently been having water ingress problems in our unfinished basement after heavy rains but thankfully it never got more than 1/2" (12mm) deep in any one area and no computer equipment was down there, just my woodworking tools/machines and the utilities (washer/drier/furnace/water heater etc.) and lots of cardboard boxes of stuff in storage which were all thankfully sitting on pallets.

**expat** · August 2nd, 2021, 07:35

Guys,
Just sweated bullets cleaning the SSD's with "surgical spirit" (the village pharmacy had it in stock), re-snaking the new PSU, dismantling fans, and generally using colorful language for about two hours but hugely pleased to report all drives showing and data preserved and 100% functionality restored. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!
I left the high tide mark on the case as a memento and reminder about backing up data. Phew!!
Thanks for your support,
expat

***fsafranek*** · August 2nd, 2021, 09:28

Good to hear. I lost my SSD drive C: last year for some reason while updating my graphics card last year. Along with that the Desktop and folders of important stuff (any folders on the new desktop are just shortcuts to remote drives now). Also lost my Documents folder with all the important (aka real world) stuff going back years. Not a month goes buy that I don't think of something else I lost.
Bottom line, do backups and do them often.
But very glad to hear you are back up and running.

***Duckie*** · August 2nd, 2021, 09:55

Way to go expat!

***arfyhun*** · August 2nd, 2021, 10:27

Great news expat, very pleased indeed to read the good news.

Graham.

***Jafo*** · August 2nd, 2021, 16:21

Originally Posted by expat

Guys,
Just sweated bullets cleaning the SSD's with "surgical spirit" (the village pharmacy had it in stock), re-snaking the new PSU, dismantling fans, and generally using colorful language for about two hours but hugely pleased to report all drives showing and data preserved and 100% functionality restored. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!
I left the high tide mark on the case as a memento and reminder about backing up data. Phew!!
Thanks for your support,
expat

Great to hear, Expat ...

Last Xmas I had what I assume was a spike...through via the power lead of the sound system - everything else was through a UPS - lost....half the sound system...the CPU and the GPU.
2 grand later...all up and running.
My 'backup' methodology meant I was pretty safe data-wise....at least...