Cleaning a hard drive

[Tremo]

You are not gonna like this, neither do I. I was changing the video card in one of my machines, and left the side cover off while I was installing the new software driver and making sure everything was working. I had to run a quick errand, so I shut down the computer and left. When I got back, one of my male cats had gotten up there and pissed inside the computer, soaking the hard drive in urine. It was dead. Not even recognized any longer.

It's an IBM Ultrastar SCSI drive. I took it out and cleaned it off with alcohol and electronic cleaner and a toothbrush. I removed the circuit board from the botton and cleaned both sides. Hopefully no urine got into the sealed rotating assembly. Anyway, after cleaning it up with the chemicals i put it all back together. I'm making sure it's dry before I try to turn it on again. Do I stand any hope of recovering this drive? I think I got all the urine residue off the circuit board and connectors.

I can't believe this.......

[Sterling_Aug]

Hard drives are never sealed. There is always at least one small holes for air to seap into the drive thru a paper filter.

Try the drive after it is dry. I would wait at least 24-48 hours.

[_Mystical_Night]

kill the cat

[Baddog]

If it had of been on the power supply, that would have broke him of it.:x

[G]

Man that cracked me up (sorry, couldn't help myself) but you may be ok if you patiently wait for the HDD to dry in a reasonably warm temperature room.

I would then recommend transferring all your data over and assigning the cat urinated SCSI for non-mission critical work or as a spare.

[ukulele]

I would burn the whole computer and the cat. That computer will never smell the same again. :(

[BadDriver]

I am sorry, I am too new to be laughing at someone elses misfortune around here. But man I can just smell the aroma of that machine after it has been running for about 15 minutes.
It isn't funny, but I own animals myself and I can see it happening. My machine sits out of wizzing height.
I have a male chihuahua that loves to wizz on anything he knows is mine. I think if he wizzed on my puters innards, I'd toss his little azz inside, put the door on and bootup.:D
I did have a computer get good and wet once. Open window, rain storm. I let it dry out for a few days, and it wouldn't boot. After reseating the cables on the board it booted and lasted another 2 and a half years.

[G Ray88]

I had somewhat of a problem, had gotten some free computers and monitors, but before I got them they had been stored on the floor of a shop. They had some guard dogs, and I guess that they the (Dogs) thought that the monitors and computers were fire hydrants I thought that they would never quit smelling bad.:eek:
The only problem that I can think of is that once the HD dries out it might start purring.:D