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Our daughter spilt coffee over the laptop yesterday and now it won't turn on. I've left it to dry out overnight and tried it this morning but it still doesn't work. And, of course, I neglected to back it up so if I can't get it to work, then we've lost everything. Hundreds, if not thousands, of photos, all my magic stuff, everything.

I don't suppose anyone knows of a magic way to revive the laptop? If you do, and it works, I will personally come and give you a hug and a big, wet kiss. (Free of charge). Otherwise I've lost it all.

Not too sure if the lap top's revivable but the hard disk should be so you should be ok about getting any of the data back. It's just a case of fishing the harddisk out and plugging it into another computer. If you're not happy with doing that, then a computer shop will be able to do it for you.

Dont know if this will help, but my hubby dropped his posh phone in a potty of wee once, took it to the phone repair shop, they opened it up, removed the stuff that was causing the problem and ta daaaa works fine... Only cost twenty quid....

MIght be worth a shot??...

F x

Hi Replicant,

I'm an IT teacher and often come up against this sort of thing. If after this length of time (and you are sure the laptop has dried out) and it still doesn't work then it looks like it may be game over.

Was there any sugar in the coffee? If so then it really does look as if it is going to be bad news. The sugar in the coffee will, simply put, cause the laptop to short circuit.

I'd try this before nipping off to buy a new one...

Remove the power cable and battery. Then take a hair dryer and VERY GENTLY dry out the laptop. This may take ten mins or so. Be careful not to get the laptop too hot or you may damage the hard drive. When it has cooled down reconnect the battery only and try to switch on. (Hint: If you have created a short circuit with the coffee then the pawer from the battery alone should not be enough to give you too big a shock)

If it still doesn't work then I fear that the laptop will be no more.

However, before you chuck it in the bin it may be worthwhile getting it looked at by an engineer. This will depend on how old it is. If it's an older model (say 2 years plus) then it may work out cheaper just to buy a new one.

Oh, and don't forget you should still be able to recover all your data on your hard drive of the damaged laptop. Most just slot out and then you should be able to pick up a hard drive case on ebay for around a tenner. You can then plug your hard drive (via a USB port) into any other PC to recover your data.

Have a look on youtube for some tutorials.

Hope this helps.

I can echo the data recovery aspect. Unless you were very unlucky, the disc probably hasn't had water inside it. Even if it has, it's not the end of the world.

One needs a clean room to dissemble discs, so don't bother trying it at home.

Basically, you can either plug your hard disk straight into the IDE (or SCSI?) interface cable of another PC, or use a IDE-to-USB connector. You will probably be able to get all your content back.

If not, there are plenty of data recovery companies that will do this for you. Worst case scenario is that it will cost more than £500, but if you have lots of photos, then you need to make that call. Bottom line: you'll get your data back.

However, one cautionary note. Assuming you have photos of your daughter as a baby. Are you sure you don't have any level one child porn on your device? Level one is strict liability and is defined as non-sexual photos of naked or semi-naked children. Eg, your kids in the bath, on the beach having their nappy changed. A photo of your eight year old dressed up as a fairy. Are you sure that no one has ever visited an adult site that has a photo of a seventeen-year-old on the banner (the UK police's Operation Ore used this) which is cached on your disc?

The data recovery companies have specific policies and procedures around offensive/pornographic material. As soon as an operator spots this stuff, they will follow procedure and escalate. No one will make a sensible decision and it'll be escalated again "just in case". Eventually it'll go to the police who will investigate "just in case", and they'll visit. If you admit to having the material, then they may be inclined to offer a caution which is a criminal conviction plus possibility of being on the sex offenders' register. All the actors in this Kafkeresque nonsense have an incentive to report and are targeted on numbers, not being sensible. Sounds rediculous, but this is what happens.

Bottom line: buy a DVD writer and an external hard disk. Make archive copies on DVD and operational copies on the external HDD. Keep the DVDs separate from anything that looks like a likely target for a thief. Don't encrypt anything unless you have a copy of the decryption application and operating system to run it on.

Last year I knocked a pint of Guiness over a £1000 mixing desk at one of our gigs. It looked like it was ruined. Our singer put it in the airing cupboard overnight and it was fine again the next day! Might be worth a try.

I've lost two laptops to a splash (and I really do mean a splash) of tea on their keyboards. They're simply too fragile.

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions, especially Richard and aporia. I will give it a go and see how I get on. If all else fails, I'm hoping we'll be covered under the contents insurance; at least that will lessen the blow somewhat. But we've never had to make a claim before so I'm hoping we're covered. With any luck, though, it won't get as far as that.

FairieSnuff wrote:Dont know if this will help, but my hubby dropped his posh phone in a potty of wee once, took it to the phone repair shop, they opened it up, removed the stuff that was causing the problem and ta daaaa works fine... Only cost twenty quid....

MIght be worth a shot??...

F x

Yup. But you'd need a very big potty, wouldn't you?

Or I suppose you could just wee directly onto the computer - but remember to unplug it first.

Pete

FairieSnuff wrote:Dont know if this will help, but my hubby dropped his posh phone in a potty of wee once, took it to the phone repair shop, they opened it up, removed the stuff that was causing the problem and ta daaaa works fine... Only cost twenty quid....

MIght be worth a shot??...

F x

oh how I would have loved to have seen that

FairieSnuff wrote:Dont know if this will help, but my hubby dropped his posh phone in a potty of wee once, took it to the phone repair shop, they opened it up, removed the stuff that was causing the problem and ta daaaa works fine... Only cost twenty quid....

MIght be worth a shot??...

F x

I once dropped an ID in a toilet at a party while I was resetting it. I don't think taking it back to the shop would have helped there. Mind you, my lovely old Nokia 3410 phone has been left in my cargos more than once and put on a full wash. It's never come to any harm.

FairieSnuff wrote:Dont know if this will help, but my hubby dropped his posh phone in a potty of wee once, took it to the phone repair shop, they opened it up, removed the stuff that was causing the problem and ta daaaa works fine... Only cost twenty quid....

MIght be worth a shot??...

F x

That's nothing unusual. I tend to find most staff in phone repair shops tend to take the p*** most of the time!
(I'm so, so sorry...)

Hello folks,

The dry out method is not going to work if the coffee had sugar in it. Unfortunately the coffee + sugar will dry out leaving sugar granuals which are conductive.

The question is when you hit the power button does anything happen? If not then yanking the battery out and trying it again might work.

I suspect the coffee went through the keyboard and hit the back of the motherboard. Taking the keyboard out and rubbing the back with nail polish remover might clear the short.

Was the laptop on when the coffee hit it? If so this might be a lost caused if it shorted and died. If it was off then it should be savable.

Mental note if you are going to splash liquid on your laptop/computer. Make it water

FairieSnuff wrote:Dont know if this will help, but my hubby dropped his posh phone in a potty of wee once, took it to the phone repair shop, they opened it up, removed the stuff that was causing the problem and ta daaaa works fine... Only cost twenty quid....

I hope you warned the poor guy first

Let this be a lesson to you all. Back up, back up often. Hard drives are cheap enough nowadays for you to buy a cheap external drive and run a nightly task which does the backup, or you can use one of these new-fangled things called "clouds" which lets you store your most important stuff on the Internet

If ya cant repair it - dont throw it out, screens can go for fairly ok money on ebay ....
F x