I have to start off by saying, wow that sucks, and I really hate to hear that, I know how I'd feel if any portion of my electronics collection (especially the HT!) were damged. It really isn't right that just because floods don't USUALLY happen you can't be protected by insurance. Isn't their an "act of god" clause or something?
Anyways, this is a topic that has always fascinated me, my wife is a major clutz and has this distinct tendancy to damage electronics in the oddest ways. And what I'm reading here and what my experience tells is you've got a 50/50 shot with every component. My wife dropped her cell phone in a pitcher of grape juice, and without pulling out the battery immediately proceeded to soak it in tap water and then just turned it off... The phone functioned for over a year afterwards (then eventually failed in a most-definitely related way). On the other hand, we had PC's accumulate a little dew over night (while powered off and unplugged, in my office with the windows open...) and just refused to boot the next day. I had a customer who came to me with a PC he'd left on his porch for 2+ years (outside in the rainy northwest) and it worked perfectly.
The recommendations I've been reading on this post seem to mostly focus on very specific situations. Some people who work with marine electroncis, they may have some really good ideas, but keep in mind the equipment they work with is probably designed to be slightly more water tolerant (not to mention the response/treatment is faster), and the people who work for manufacturers, probably work with specialized hardware (and probably) build to more robust specifications. You have a wide variety of hardware to recover, and you have to treat it as such.
YMMV, and if I were you, I'd choose the procedures I felt both monetarily and philosophically confident in and spend as little time as is reasonable on each individual component. Dis-assemble everything, clean, do whatever you feel comfortable for drying. I'd invest in some testing hardware power supply testers etc... (may just be me) and systematically eliminate the components that are beyond salvage. EG You don't want to end up frying an entire motherboard/processor/memory because a power supply is dead and beyond rescue. To be safe I might even recommend just biting the bullet and replacing some of the ultra sensitive components... I can't tell you how many MoBo's I've killed in my shop because of a faulty power supply. Even then you will probably find that everything has a dramatically reduced lifespan and I'd start budgeting to replace it. But hopefully you don't have to replace it all at once!
I wish you the best of luck, I do thank you for the informative question, and I hope everything works out!
I've never, in all the years I've used Linux, had to edit config files to accomplish some "ordinary" task. The only times I've had to edit the config files were "hacks" to accomplish something that I don't think would ever apply to an ordinary user.
What scenario would Grandma Maybel need to even know about the config files?
These arguments are getting old. Lets all just agree that Windows and Linux aren't perfect OS's and agree to disagree about how we crash? Oh wait this is/.
I'm sorry... but am I alone in thinking that its HILarious that everyone gets whipped into a frenzy when _2_ POSSIBLE exploits are discovered in Mac OS, when Windows has over the years shown... thousands if not millions?
I don't mean to be an anti-windows troll, trust me, I still have 2 Windows machines at home (and then 10 Ubuntu) but assuming that whoever discovered these vulnerabilities spends a large portion of their time looking for them, I'd say the record looks pretty good thus far...
I personally have concluded that its not possible to make a COMPLETELY secure OS, (especially given PEBKAC) but if you make one that demonstrates issues on a rare/reasonably rare basis then you've done it well.
So Hurrah Apple (and contributing OSS Devs), I say job well done!!!
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I have to start off by saying, wow that sucks, and I really hate to hear that, I know how I'd feel if any portion of my electronics collection (especially the HT!) were damged. It really isn't right that just because floods don't USUALLY happen you can't be protected by insurance. Isn't their an "act of god" clause or something?
Anyways, this is a topic that has always fascinated me, my wife is a major clutz and has this distinct tendancy to damage electronics in the oddest ways. And what I'm reading here and what my experience tells is you've got a 50/50 shot with every component. My wife dropped her cell phone in a pitcher of grape juice, and without pulling out the battery immediately proceeded to soak it in tap water and then just turned it off... The phone functioned for over a year afterwards (then eventually failed in a most-definitely related way). On the other hand, we had PC's accumulate a little dew over night (while powered off and unplugged, in my office with the windows open...) and just refused to boot the next day. I had a customer who came to me with a PC he'd left on his porch for 2+ years (outside in the rainy northwest) and it worked perfectly.
The recommendations I've been reading on this post seem to mostly focus on very specific situations. Some people who work with marine electroncis, they may have some really good ideas, but keep in mind the equipment they work with is probably designed to be slightly more water tolerant (not to mention the response/treatment is faster), and the people who work for manufacturers, probably work with specialized hardware (and probably) build to more robust specifications. You have a wide variety of hardware to recover, and you have to treat it as such.
YMMV, and if I were you, I'd choose the procedures I felt both monetarily and philosophically confident in and spend as little time as is reasonable on each individual component. Dis-assemble everything, clean, do whatever you feel comfortable for drying. I'd invest in some testing hardware power supply testers etc... (may just be me) and systematically eliminate the components that are beyond salvage. EG You don't want to end up frying an entire motherboard/processor/memory because a power supply is dead and beyond rescue. To be safe I might even recommend just biting the bullet and replacing some of the ultra sensitive components... I can't tell you how many MoBo's I've killed in my shop because of a faulty power supply. Even then you will probably find that everything has a dramatically reduced lifespan and I'd start budgeting to replace it. But hopefully you don't have to replace it all at once!
I wish you the best of luck, I do thank you for the informative question, and I hope everything works out!
I've never, in all the years I've used Linux, had to edit config files to accomplish some "ordinary" task. The only times I've had to edit the config files were "hacks" to accomplish something that I don't think would ever apply to an ordinary user.
What scenario would Grandma Maybel need to even know about the config files?
These arguments are getting old. Lets all just agree that Windows and Linux aren't perfect OS's and agree to disagree about how we crash? Oh wait this is /.
W1nd0z3 SUX0r5!
I'm sorry... but am I alone in thinking that its HILarious that everyone gets whipped into a frenzy when _2_ POSSIBLE exploits are discovered in Mac OS, when Windows has over the years shown... thousands if not millions?
I don't mean to be an anti-windows troll, trust me, I still have 2 Windows machines at home (and then 10 Ubuntu) but assuming that whoever discovered these vulnerabilities spends a large portion of their time looking for them, I'd say the record looks pretty good thus far...
I personally have concluded that its not possible to make a COMPLETELY secure OS, (especially given PEBKAC) but if you make one that demonstrates issues on a rare/reasonably rare basis then you've done it well.
So Hurrah Apple (and contributing OSS Devs), I say job well done!!!