HD horror stories

[Bozo]

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=storage&articleId=9051298&taxonomyId=19&intsrc=kc_top

Bozo :joker:

[Mercutio]

Reading that made me die a little on the inside.
I love all the hard disks, except the ones made by Western Digital.

[ddrueding]

I've never had a thumb drive lose data in the laundry. It could be that in most cases I strip the case off, so it's just circuit board and chips, no place for water to stick around.

Anyone else?

[Mercutio]

I've had students who have had it happen, but the ones I buy (Transcend) don't seem to have a problem with it, and seem to average washing one about once a month these days.

[ddrueding]

My CorsairGT has survived it twice, and many of my other caseless wonders don't seem to have any issues at all.

[paugie]

One of my friends sent me SMS saying her husband laundered her office's flashdisk.
I told her to rinse it well so there would be no soap (alkali) residue in the drive. Then shake the water off it (not too violently). Let it dry (not sun dry) for at least 2 days. (She waited 5 days)

When she finally tried the drive, it had all the data intact. Have no idea what brand it was, except that she said it was 2Gb

[Fushigi]

Good idea. Most any piece of electronics has a decent chance of survival if you can eliminate the conductive materials (residue) before applying power to it. For that, I recommend rinsing or bathing a device in alcohol, which is a decent cleaner and is non-residual. The 70% stuff that's common is OK but you can get 90% alcohol at many places.

[ddrueding]

When I did electrical design and prototyping, we would put all the boards in the dishwasher to clean them off.