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Beer fried macbook, hard drive salvagable?

G

goob

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 14, 2008
3
0
I'm the not so proud owner of a completely fried Macbook, beer damaged. It wont turn on and has been left to rot for a couple of months.

Is it possible the hard drive will still be intact?
I'd really like to be able to salvage it. The beer spilt onto the keyboard so the logic board is buggered. But is the HDD in a seperate waterproof case?

I'm on the point of buying a second hand macbook off ebay but i'm wondering will I be able to simply put my old hard drive in this one and off I go?

Thanks for any help,
Aidan
 
Hi - and welcome.

Hard to tell really if the drive will be ok - the compartment is not watertight but is separate to the logic board area - most of the holes under the keyboard will have directed the beer towards the memory slots area - hence the fried logicboard.

Have you tried to start it up recently ? Have you pulled out the hard drive at all ?

The simplest answer is to buy a small USB enclosure for the SATA drive and when you get your new MacBook connect it up and see what there is there.

Where are you located - it may help us point you in the right direction.
 
are you sure it is fried & not just the battery? I had a similar thing with a powerbook that had been in my cupboard for a year, & a re-seat to the battery solved it....
 
yeah i'm pretty sure (simply from reading copious forums) that it is the logic board.

I'm based in Cambridge by the way.

Hmm so this is like a could work could not kind of thing?
Damnnnn so much music i've made on that hard drive :(
 
goob said:
Damnnnn so much music i've made on that hard drive :(
Click to expand...

No access to another MacBook to try the disc ? Or even another Mac and a USB enclosure ?

The chances are it is the logicboard but might just be the topcase.

How old is the MacBook ?
 
I have access to another macbook I just dont feel comfortable doing anything to it as it belongs to my mother.

I've just purchased a SATA 2.5" enclosure for a tenner so hopefully i can see if it works. Fingers crossed eh?

Anyone got any idea on the likelihood of it being okay?
 
I have had 2 Macbooks suffer a similar fate and rescued the hard drives and laptops on both occasions.

The first time nearly two years ago was due to a beer spillage and the guys at the Apple Store Genius Bar gave me the same diagnosis as you have deduced. So I splashed the cash on a new Macbook swapped the hard drive and the RAM and the new machine didn't work turns out that the beer had fried the RAM and that Macbook with new RAM is still working to this day albeit in the hands of a now ex girlfriend.

Second accident happened a couple of weeks ago involving Red Wine and this time due to the pressures of work I had to get a new machine straight away and get the hard drive into it. On removing the RAM I noticed a red wine stain on one the RAM chips and sure enough when I got home a couple of weeks later on swapping the RAM the machine was back working again.
 
treble99 said:
I have had 2 Macbooks suffer a similar fate and rescued the hard drives and laptops on both occasions.

The first time nearly two years ago was due to a beer spillage and the guys at the Apple Store Genius Bar gave me the same diagnosis as you have deduced. So I splashed the cash on a new Macbook swapped the hard drive and the RAM and the new machine didn't work turns out that the beer had fried the RAM and that Macbook with new RAM is still working to this day albeit in the hands of a now ex girlfriend.

Second accident happened a couple of weeks ago involving Red Wine and this time due to the pressures of work I had to get a new machine straight away and get the hard drive into it. On removing the RAM I noticed a red wine stain on one the RAM chips and sure enough when I got home a couple of weeks later on swapping the RAM the machine was back working again.
Click to expand...

Careful who you give this one to .. lol
 
The old ones definitely staying at home this time as a back up in case of any future drunken mishaps.
 
goob said:
yeah i'm pretty sure (simply from reading copious forums) that it is the logic board.

I'm based in Cambridge by the way.

Hmm so this is like a could work could not kind of thing?
Damnnnn so much music i've made on that hard drive :(
Click to expand...

Backups. Backups. Backups.
 
treble99 said:
I have had 2 Macbooks suffer a similar fate and rescued the hard drives and laptops on both occasions.

The first time nearly two years ago was due to a beer spillage and the guys at the Apple Store Genius Bar gave me the same diagnosis as you have deduced. So I splashed the cash on a new Macbook swapped the hard drive and the RAM and the new machine didn't work turns out that the beer had fried the RAM and that Macbook with new RAM is still working to this day albeit in the hands of a now ex girlfriend.

Second accident happened a couple of weeks ago involving Red Wine and this time due to the pressures of work I had to get a new machine straight away and get the hard drive into it. On removing the RAM I noticed a red wine stain on one the RAM chips and sure enough when I got home a couple of weeks later on swapping the RAM the machine was back working again.
Click to expand...

I gave my iPod video to my ex girlfriend..... But now I got an Ipod Touch:cool:
 
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