Any one here me cussing today around 6pm Central?

[jwcnc1911]

Well I've done it now.

I've babied my laptop for just over two years. It's been a crappy work weekend any way. So just add this to it.

Like I said, babied my laptop for over two years only to drag my charger and wire across a Diet Mt Dew spilling it into the keyboard. The screen instantly went black.

Man that bites and in a day or two when what I've lost really sinks in... I'll let you know how bad it actually hurts.

Let's see,
$1200 laptop. But that's nothing compared to the CAD/CAM software I've invested in which is around $12000 for all of it. Solidworks, Edgecam, Autocad... BUT... that's nothing compared to all the work that was in it. Hundreds of hours, solids, drafts, nc programs, ALL of my work... BUT that's nothing compared to all the REALLY hard to get ITAR drawings and things for work. All my contract work... I've got post processors for about 60 machines that I've hand tweaked, literally one off posts for one off machines.

Not all cash value or money out of my pocket but I'd say if I could put a price tag on it, over two years I'm in the 180k range. That's just in the 2 hours I've had to think about it.

Fortunately I do back up weekly... but that's Acronis imaging software probably only good for that hard drive in that pc.

Some one come shoot me.

Not to mention all my hobby stuff was on there... that's where my CAD/CAM was.

 

[aarggh]

Chances are the drive itself is fine, normally the power supply feeds go in cases like this. First thing is to pull the battery out, and open it up. Ebay will get you a 2.5" hdd USB converter so you can connect it to a PC and copy off what you need to. Depending on the OS used too, you could also image the drive and load it into another laptop or machine, if your lucky only minimal drivers needed to get it working.

As you've got nothing to lose, it might also be worth spraying with some acetone over the opened chassis, to get rid of the drink (which will quickly start destroying circuitry) and clean/dry things up. You might be surprised. I've seen laptops come back this way. Sometimes if the screen is dead, your able to use the secondary video port hooked up to a monitor.

Good luck with it! Ian

 

[jwcnc1911]

Man I hope your right! My mind is going nuts thinking of ways to get my stuff out of there. If I don't jinx myself at least I still have my tablet to check email and maintain contacts. I just got a 9 year old dell desktop out of the attic to see if I can restore one of my backup images to it. I haven't looked for computers in... Well, just over two years. I been looking, can you still get a windows 7 computer? I don't know if I can even get my stuff out of it if it will even run on winblows 8.

 

[Henry]

Let it dry, a careful treatment with an hair drier can help. I saw one like yours came again to life after it dry. Good luck. The hard drive will be OK.

 

[jwcnc1911]

Just heard back from dassault... I'm about 5 months out of my maintenance subscription. Yea!

 

[jwcnc1911]

I'm hoping it will come back to life. I saw a friend of mine fill one with ethyl alcohol to make it dry out faster, I figured it was toast any way and in a moment of panick I filled with ethyl alcohol from the lab and put it in front of a fan. I'll know around 6am when I go in tomorrow.

 

[jwcnc1911]

Man I'm literally sick at my stomach. I'll never sleep tonight. I would go work in my shop tonight to keep my mind busy but all my resources are in that laptop.

 

[aarggh]

The important thing as I mentioned is some alcohol or acetone to clean the boards and dry them. So long as nothing actually blew, hopefully the worst case is you might have a dead screen, but maybe able to hook up a monitor anyway.

Whatever you do, DON'T be tempted to power it on before you are 100% sure it's dry and clean!

cheers, ian

 

[BronxFigs]

JW...

Just read this post. I can only imagine what might be ruined, or lost. I hope things will not be as bad as you think. Prayers for a rapid recovery of what was lost.

F

 

[slaurenson]

Yeh as said before the disk is more than likely all good - Grab yourself a disk caddy and whip the hard drive out of the laptop, hook up to the PC and you should be able to access the data.. have a look on ebay, you can find them there.

don't panic yet (to much)

 

[goldstar31]

There is so much verbiage and crooked thinking here that it is difficult to sort what is relevant from what is junk.
I'm one of these old timers- and I'm not fussy about the views of aged farts who cannot write English!
You have a laptop which- and it took forever- to find out what you spilled. It was a carbonated drink with probably some sticky sugar and water. So if it dries out --you have added a glue. Again, someone has suggested chemicals which may dissolve the rest of the works. So you concentrate on the ESSENTIALS which I put to you is the hard drive. You are not bothered about the things that make the wheels go round- get the hard drive out.

On examination of the hard drive, you will find that out whether liquid has entered- or not. If it has not, all that you have to do is find a tame and friendly lap top owner who will allow you to try your drive in his laptop. If the penetration is severe, you have several choices but one to get another computer buff to remove the disk itself and put it into a working machine.

Frankly, you can then address the rest of the problem-But only then.

You might not have liked my comments- but when you are old- you've heard all the rudest comments several times already.

Good Luck

Norman

 

[mikegw1961]

Jeremy

I would get a disk caddy and try the drive. We do it all the time at work to recover customer data. If the drive working you will be able to get the data off the disk.

If not there are data recovery companies that will be able to recover the data. Expensive but if you need the data then it could be worth it.

Mike

 

[dmac]

Hi Jeramy,

I have been in IT in various forms for more then 30 years. If your not computer literate, go get help.
Buy a new laptop that will suit your needs then take it and the old one to a computer store that you can trust to transfer over all your data.
The data will most likely be fine on the old drive but unless your confident with transferring applications across, just pay someone who knows what they are doing. The cost is only labour so will not be exorbitant, at worst two to four hours.

Well worth the peace of mind.

Would do for you but you are to fare away.

Best of luck.

Dave.

 

[jwcnc1911]

Thank you gentlemen for the comments, boy I was frazzled yesterday. I'll swing by office depot after work to grab a disk caddy if it doesn't power up today.

I've had time to settle down now... We'll see if it powers on in an our or so.

 

[Tin Falcon]

Sorry to hear about your possible disaster. Hope it just turns into a stress test.
I too have a laptop I kind of baby it is somewhat of a electronic companion. A technical assistant if you will.
I had a scare of my own a little over a week ago. I had taken my laptop to work to complete several CAD drawings . By the end of the day I was tired. I think my son and I were both feeling a little end of week burnout. I am a scale tech so also very much a hands on guy. And I have my own tools at work . On weekends my tools go in my car. So half brain dead I manage to dump part of the contents of the tool box in car trunk stop to organize and my son pitches in . My son (tech in training) also helps by packing my laptop in the case. does not put it in hibernate but unplugs it closes it and leaves the wireless keyboard turned on. So after the 45 minute ride home I unpack the laptop it is hot as a crock pot and a whole bunch of calculator windows open plus a couple other windows open. Needless to say I was at least as hot as the laptop.So far no signs of ill effects.
Something I have done with laptops is use a separate key board and mouse. I do my best to keep food and drink away from the laptop.
if the added keyboard gets trashed I am out $40.
I keep the keyboard on my lap and the laptop above food and drink.
I also use a cooling pad keeps the laptop off the table or desk and hopefully extends the life of the laptop.
Tin

 

[jwcnc1911]

Oh yeah! All is not lost! Display, touchpad and keyboard and 2 of 3 USB ports not working. I can plug into a monitor and I use a wireless 3d mouse any way. Compared yo what I was looking at I'm thrilled! Software all seems to be working so I can at least use it like a desktop until I can find another laptop I like. That in itself could take a month.

What a relief!

Drag and drop of my various directories says I'm copying about 60,000 files just by adding up several different dialogs in my head. That's just my solids and drawings.

Heck, one hydraulic fixture I'm currently working on had just over 600 solids in the assembly.

Man what a relief to see it all copying to my external hdd!

 

[Tin Falcon]

Good news only a relatively small disaster.
Glad you can breathe easier.
Tin

 

[BronxFigs]

Prayers helped. I'm glad.

F

 

[jwcnc1911]

Thank you for the concern and advice!

 

[robcas631]

I have not been online for nearly seven weeks.