MacBook Air ReInstall OS

[BenMc47]

Hi all,

A glass of water spilled on my wife's MacBook Air (from around 2013 or so, running High Sierra). After drying it out I managed to get it turned back on, but with the Folder / Question Mark icon (ie it cannot find the system boot folder).

I was able to open get access to macOS Utilities via command-R and ran Disk Utility on everything with no difficulties. However, attempting to Reinstall the macOS just leads to a dead end--it just says "The recovery server could not be contacted." (The computer is connected to the internet).

At this point I am not wanting to erase the disk--it has not been backed up for a while so I'm trying to recover the recent data on it. Given that, what I'm wondering is if there are any other options I should attempt to reload the OS before I look at recovering data from the hard drive through some external means?

I know there are things I can try once I'm not worried about erasing the drive, but I don't want to do any of that this point.

Obviously I'm a bit of an amateur at this so I appreciate any input or wisdom that the community can offer. Thank you.

 

[barbu]

You can try reinstalling High Sierra over itself, this will not overwrite your data.

I am concerned that it won’t boot though. Also, depending how much water went in, it may still be wet. You do NOT want to rush this. Place it somewhere well ventilated and wait, preferably, several days.

My MBP got left out (closed) all night in a huge rainstorm. I was patient and waited many days before attempting anything with it. Other than some screen stain speckles in one corner, it was fine and is still in service today.

Don’t put it in rice, just wait and wait.