Powerbook repair or recovery

T

timsnell

Registered
I have a powerbook titanium that I just soaked with water. I tried to dry it out and it managed to turn back on ok, except when I plugged in the main lead and it died. The battery is pretty low anyway so I only got about 10mins out of it before it ran out, but I can't charge it or turn it on.

It seems to me that it's the socket that the power supply goes into has been damaged - I was just wondering if anyone knows from past experience whether this is an expensive thing to fix? Or would it be worth just recovering the data from the hard disk? Also, if I want to do that - how would I go about recovering data from a laptop hard disk?

As you can tell, I'm a bit concerned and clueless about all this,

thanks!

Tim
 
Was that part of the laptop ever broke? Often times the solder connections from that plug on the motherboard will break and require re-soldering. Not sure how much that would be to have fixed.
 
No - that only stopped working when I spilt water directly on it. The battery has been flat for a while.

I wasn't sure whether it was an easy part of the laptop to get to and fix, presumably the more tricky it is to get to the more it will cost?

On the second part of the question - is there a way of ripping out the hard disk and plugging it into something else to recover the data?
 
How long did you wait after spilling the water and drying it off before you turned it on? If it was less than 2 or 3 days, there's a good chance that you fried the computer. Simply wiping the water off isn't enough -- you must give it plenty of time to completely dry every last drop of water before trying to power up the computer -- one small drop of water in the wrong place when power is supplied to the computer can render the whole machine unusable.

Different repair shops charge different amounts -- it could be anywhere from $50 to $1500, depending on who you get to repair it. Try here for parts:
http://www.powerbookmedic.com/

You can remove the hard drive and plug it into another Macintosh to salvage the data, if the hard drive is still in working condition. You may need an adaptor like this:
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/insidecomputer/la2tode3hadr.html
 
Right, well the bad news is that I did not wait 2-3 days before turning it on (more like 2-3 minutes!)

The good news is that it still seemed to work after that - but only from the battery, now power supply.

Basically I'm weighing up whether it would be cheaper to fix it, or pull the data off the hard disk and buy a new laptop. I'm leaning towards buying a new one as the battery was as a good as dead, and the dvd drive no longer worked, and it was pretty scratched and cracked and a few years old anyway.

I would ask where you recommend getting it repaired but I'm based in the UK so I guess you wouldn't really know. I'm also not a techy so I wouldn't feel at all comfortable about opening it up and trying to fix it myself

Thanks for the links though
 
Your computer is probably toast. Dihydrous Oxide and electric components do not mix well. If you had used a vacuum cleaner to suck out the water right away and then waited a week for the left over water to evaporate you might have had a chance.

It is still possible to ressurect it but it would be pure luck.

Get a vacuum cleaner with a nozzle and go around all the cracks and crevices and suck out anything you can. Then let it sit for a week or more in warm conditions. When it gets warm then redo the vacuum cleaner to get any water that has condensed.

Then give it a try and see what happens.

The other alternative is to take it to a repair shop and they can tear it apart and dry it out that way.
 
if it only works by the battery, find a friend who has the same computer and charge your battery. then, plug the water-mac into another computer and boot as a 'hard-drive' and move the data using a firewire cable. this will help u avoid having to rip out the hard drive (that is, if it will still boot using the battery alone). just a thought. also, you could get one of those enclosures and, voila! you have an external hard drive!
 
Yeah, I had that thought about trying to use someone elses battery in my machine to back it all up. I'd definitly prefer to do that then rip out the hard disk... if I can get the laptop to work.

I'll know next time to have more patience if I spill water on my computer!
 
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