[NBLUG/talk] Burnt Laptops

gandalf at sonic.net gandalf at sonic.net
Thu Apr 9 16:13:59 PDT 2009


1. I looked into DriveSavers and the $1k+ pricetag per drive is beyond what I could resource for this. 
2. I looked into a competitor and it's still in the $1k per drive range although significantly lighter than drivesavers and with only a $50 evaluation fee.
3. I think it is very likely that these drives (or some of them) may spin up allowing file transfer.
4. I think it is rather likely that some of these drives may work and continue to work without issue. 
5. I think what I want to attempt is probably what all drive restoration places would do in the first place anyway. 
6. The next step after a failed os/image restoration is drive board replacement and that doesn't seem difficult, but instead tedious in finding a donor drive from ebay. The drive needs to match the production dates for the given drive within two weeks and be the exact same in other respects.

Now to my thinking I can do all of these steps and if the drive still doesn't work then turn it over to one of these companies. However I think it is very unlikely that there is any actual physical damage to the motor/arm and plates (insides). Most likely the damage would be limited to the exterior circuit board. 

I base this upon the level of physical damage to the drives. Two of the drives were hot enough that plastic to some extent melted on them. This would mean that the area around these drives was 300-600 degrees. I have heard that the inside elements of drives are good to about 1800 degrees. I'm sure that at 1800 degrees the plastic would not have just melted. I'm sure that parts of the laptops were exposed to 1800 degree heat, but the drives were underneath protected by several layers of motherboard, keyboard, etc. So I think that the drives were probably only cooked to 450 degrees or so. While this is outside normal drive operating temperatures I don't think this is hot enough to damage the drive boards when they were not powered up. However the plastic melted on the one drive board is a concern. I think I should attempt to chip it off if I can as I think it could cause shorts. But then plastic is an insulator. 

Anyway, that's how my thinking is currently going. 

(imagine a cute or dirty tagline here)

 On Thu 09/04/09  3:35 PM , "Jordan Erickson" jerickson at logicalnetworking.net sent:
> If you've got the funds and/or your data is important enough, I would 
> *highly* recommend DriveSavers in Novato (www.drivesavers.com). They've recovered data from worse.
> 
> If you want to go your own route, be very careful. Once you spin a drive
> up that's been damaged, you're likely going to inflict more damage upon
> it.
> 
> Cheers,
> Jordan
> 
> 
> 
> gandalf at son
> ic.net wrote:> Hey guys. In February my house burned up and
> three laptops went with it. I have the three harddrives. I think they might
> just spin up when connected to an os, but an unsure. There seems to be more
> problems with things melted to them than them actually melting. Anyway I'm
> trying to bone up on knowledge and come up with a plan before I do
> anything. I'm thinking of getting a WD book terabyte drive for file/image
> backup. So I thought I'd post here and ask for input. >  
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________> talk mailing list
> > talk at nblug.org
> > http://nblug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk>   
> 
> 
> -- 
> Jordan Erickson
> Owner, Logical Networking Solutions
> http://www.logicalnetworking.net707-636-5678
> 
> Latest LNS Blogs - http://blog.logicalnetworking.net
> Leaving computers on overnight = $2.8 billion a year
> Starbucks Ditches T-Mobile, Will Offer AT+T WiFi
> Google Earth Uncovers Brit Nuclear Sub Base, Missile Facility
> 
> 
> 
> 



More information about the talk mailing list